How Closed Airspace Threatens U.S. Military Mobility Across Eurasia
For much of the modern aviation era, geography was something the global aviation industry learned to overcome.
在现代航空时代的大部分时间里，地理因素是全球航空业学会克服的问题。
Simply put, unlike a railway, a pipeline, or a highway, an aircraft does not require a continuous physical infrastructure between its point of departure and its destination.
简而言之，与铁路、管道或高速公路不同，飞机在出发点和目的地之间不需要连续的物理基础设施。
Routes could change, aircraft could move between markets, and hubs could rise and decline.
航线可能会改变，飞机可能会在市场之间移动，枢纽可能会兴衰。
If economics justified a service, aviation possessed an extraordinary ability to find another way through.
如果经济证明一项服务是合理的，那么航空业就拥有寻找另一种方式的非凡能力。
Before 2022, for nearly a decade at Russian AirBridgeCargo Airlines, I watched that principle operate from inside one of the most geographically ambitious cargo networks in the world, connecting different parts of Eurasia and North America.
2022 年之前，在俄罗斯空桥货运航空公司工作了近十年，我目睹了这一原则在世界上地理上最雄心勃勃的货运网络之一内部的运作，连接着欧亚大陆和北美的不同地区。
Modern aviation has survived larger shocks than the current restrictions across Russian and Gulf airspace.
现代航空业经受住了比当前俄罗斯和海湾领空限制更大的冲击。
9/11 transformed aviation security , while the novel coronavirus closed borders, grounded fleets, and collapsed global passenger demand .
9/11 事件改变了航空安全，而新型冠状病毒关闭了边境，停飞了机队，并导致全球旅客需求崩溃。
Yet the pandemic was, in one important sense, symmetric and reversible.
然而，从一个重要意义上来说，这场大流行是对称的、可逆的。
Once restrictions were lifted, much of the network could return.
一旦限制解除，大部分网络就可以恢复。
By 2024, worldwide passenger demand was already 3.8 percent above its 2019 level .
到 2024 年，全球乘客需求已比 2019 年水平高出 3.8%。
The disruptions accumulating in Eurasia since 2022 are different, though, because they are asymmetric, persistent, and cumulative.
然而，自 2022 年以来欧亚大陆累积的破坏是不同的，因为它们是不对称的、持续的和累积的。
They are asymmetric because different airlines now have different political access to the same geography , persistent because airspace restrictions can remain long after the shock that produced them , and cumulative because losing one route increases dependence on whatever remains across the continent.
它们是不对称的，因为不同的航空公司现在对同一地理区域有不同的政治准入；它们是持久的，因为空域限制在产生空域限制后可能会持续很长一段时间；它们是累积的，因为失去一条航线会增加对整个大陆剩余的任何东西的依赖。
For instance, Chinese airlines retained access to Russian airspace after 2022 , while Western carriers lost it.
例如，2022年后，中国航空公司保留了进入俄罗斯领空的权限，而西方航空公司则失去了进入俄罗斯领空的权限。
In summer 2019 , Chinese airlines operated approximately 55 percent of scheduled capacity between China and Europe.
2019年夏季，中国航空公司运营的中国与欧洲之间的定期航班运力约占55%。
By summer 2025, their share had increased to 83 percent, even though total market capacity stayed flat.
到 2025 年夏季，尽管市场总容量保持不变，但它们的份额已增至 83%。
Meanwhile, after losing access to Russian airspace, Finnair’s Helsinki-Tokyo flight time increased from about nine hours to 13 , a 44 percent increase.
与此同时，在失去俄罗斯领空后，芬兰航空的赫尔辛基-东京飞行时间从约 9 小时增加到 13 小时，增加了 44%。
Furthermore, during the latest Middle East disruption , airlines rerouted 1,150 flights per day to avoid the conflict area — forcing those aircraft to fly 206,000 additional kilometers every day.
此外，在最近的中东混乱期间，航空公司每天改变 1,150 个航班的航线以避免冲突地区，迫使这些飞机每天额外飞行 206,000 公里。
This manifested the “geopolitization” of the Eurasian civil aviation industry in a measurable form.
这在一定程度上体现了欧亚民航业的“地缘政治化”。
Moreover, under certain conditions, the access attached to an airline’s political identity became a commercial asset.
此外，在某些条件下，航空公司的政治身份所附带的准入权会成为一种商业资产。
The consequences may extend well beyond civil airline economics to the broader questions of strategic access, connectivity, and mobility across Eurasia.
其后果可能远远超出民用航空经济学，延伸到欧亚大陆战略准入、互联互通和流动性等更广泛的问题。
The United States built its current exceptional capacity for global military mobility inside the civilian aviation ecosystem and still largely depends on commercial airlines, civil airports, cargo hubs, maintenance organizations, fuel infrastructure, and politically accessible airspace across much of the world.
美国目前在民用航空生态系统内建立了卓越的全球军事机动能力，但仍然很大程度上依赖于世界大部分地区的商业航空公司、民用机场、货运枢纽、维护组织、燃料基础设施和政治上可通行的空域。
The Pentagon never had to own that entire system to benefit from it.
五角大楼从来不需要拥有整个系统才能从中受益。
Afghanistan demonstrated how far that interdependency once extended.
阿富汗证明了这种相互依存曾经延伸到何种程度。
From 2009, the United States used the so-called Northern Distribution Network to move military cargo across Russia and Central Asia into Afghanistan.
从2009年开始，美国利用所谓的北方配送网络将军用货物穿越俄罗斯和中亚运往阿富汗。
The United States and its allies relied not only on surface transit across Russia but on Russian geography and commercial Russian airlift itself — Volga-Dnepr Airlines’ Russian An-124s flew NATO strategic airlift missions, while a 2009 U.S.-Russian agreement opened Russian airspace to American military aircraft , including C-17s.
美国及其盟国不仅依赖穿越俄罗斯的地面运输，还依赖俄罗斯的地理和俄罗斯商业空运本身——伏尔加第聂伯航空公司的俄罗斯 An-124 飞机执行北约战略空运任务，而 2009 年美俄协议向包括 C-17 在内的美国军用飞机开放俄罗斯领空。
By April 2011, more than 1,000 U.S. supply missions had transited Russian airspace , carrying more than 150,000 personnel, and the Russian city of Ulyanovsk was later added as another potential air-and-rail transit option.
截至2011年4月，已有1000多个美国补给团飞越俄罗斯领空，运载超过15万名人员，俄罗斯城市乌里扬诺夫斯克后来被添加为另一个潜在的空中和铁路运输选择。
Access to northern Eurasia was therefore not at all peripheral to U.S. strategic mobility — it provided aircraft and alternative corridors that reduced dependence on Pakistan.
因此，进入欧亚大陆北部对于美国的战略机动来说根本不是次要的——它提供了飞机和替代走廊，减少了对巴基斯坦的依赖。
Today, first with the war in Ukraine, and now with the war in Iran, the risk is that the civilian network surrounding American military mobility in Eurasia becomes — with every new escalatory turn of events — narrower, more politically conditional, and more vulnerable, while military requirements in Eurasia, on the opposite, become more and more demanding.
如今，首先是乌克兰战争，现在又是伊朗战争，风险在于，随着事态的每一次新的升级，围绕美国在欧亚大陆军事机动性的民用网络变得越来越狭窄、更具政治条件、更加脆弱，而相反，欧亚大陆的军事需求却变得越来越苛刻。
Moreover, the problem is now escalating beyond just “closed airspace.” Kyiv, as a direct party to the conflict — itself an unusual dynamic in aviation safety — is urging foreign airlines to avoid Russian airspace and has formally asked the International Civil Aviation Organization to treat it as unsafe for civilian aviation because of regular Ukrainian drone operations.
此外，问题现在正在升级，不仅仅是“封闭空域”。基辅作为冲突的直接一方（本身在航空安全方面是一个不寻常的动态）正在敦促外国航空公司避开俄罗斯领空，并正式要求国际民用航空组织将其视为对民用航空不安全的国家，因为乌克兰无人机定期作业。
Earlier, the European Union Aviation Safety Agency also recommended against operations in Russian airspace west of 60 degrees east longitude, citing the danger of misidentification, the activation of Russian air defense systems, and limited available mitigation.
此前，欧盟航空安全局还建议不要在东经60度以西的俄罗斯领空进行行动，理由是存在误识别的危险、俄罗斯防空系统的激活以及可用的缓解措施有限。
At the same time, suspected Russian sabotage and GPS jamming have reached major European logistics hubs such as Leipzig/Halle and the Baltic Sea .
与此同时，疑似俄罗斯的破坏和GPS干扰已经到达莱比锡/哈勒和波罗的海等欧洲主要物流枢纽。
Europe and U.S. allies in NATO are therefore becoming part of the contested network itself.
因此，欧洲和美国在北约的盟友正在成为有争议的网络本身的一部分。
With the Ukraine and the Iran wars ongoing , traffic that once dispersed across thousands of kilometers of northern Eurasia now sometimes funnels through the remaining geography between Russian airspace to the north and Iranian and Gulf airspace to the south.
随着乌克兰和伊朗战争的持续，曾经分散在欧亚大陆北部数千公里的交通现在有时会穿过北部俄罗斯领空与南部伊朗和海湾领空之间的剩余地理区域。
At one point, the route narrowed to a corridor of roughly 160 kilometers, with Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Turkey absorbing much of the displaced flow.
路线一度缩小为约 160 公里长的走廊，格鲁吉亚、阿塞拜疆、亚美尼亚和土耳其吸收了大部分流离失所的人流。
This is what cumulative concentration of mobility looks like on a map when the loss of one large piece of usable geography increases the strategic and commercial importance of what remains.
当一大片可用地理区域的丧失增加了剩余区域的战略和商业重要性时，地图上的流动性累积集中度就是这样的。
“Contested mobility” is not a new term.
“有争议的流动性”并不是一个新术语。
The U.S. Government Accountability Office defines it as the military’s ability to transport equipment and personnel in a contested operational environment.
美国政府问责办公室将其定义为军队在有争议的作战环境中运输设备和人员的能力。
The U.S. Transportation Command calls strategic airlift a “national asymmetric advantage.” Also, as U.S. Transportation Command commander Gen.
美国运输司令部称战略空运为“国家不对称优势”。此外，作为美国运输司令部司令将军。
Randall Reed put it in 2025 : “Now that adversaries have the ability to contest logistics across the entire spectrum, from point-of-origin to point-of-use,” including non-kinetic disruption, the United States is “fighting to move, instead of moving to fight.”
兰德尔·里德 (Randall Reed) 在 2025 年表示：“现在对手有能力在从出发点到使用点的整个范围内对后勤进行竞争”，包括非动能破坏，美国正在“为移动而战，而不是为战斗而移动”。
U.S. Transportation Command’s own fleet comprises 52 C-5Ms and 223 C-17s , while the Civil Reserve Air Fleet program also commits civilian aircraft to augment them when needed.
美国运输司令部自己的机队包括 52 架 C-5M 和 223 架 C-17，而民用储备航空机队计划也承诺在需要时派遣民用飞机来增强它们。
More broadly, while the Civil Reserve Air Fleet itself consists of the U.S. civil aircraft committed to augment military lift , the wider commercial ecosystem on which American mobility historically relied extended well beyond U.S. Transportation Command and Civil Reserve Air Fleet capabilities themselves.
更广泛地说，虽然民用后备航空舰队本身由致力于增强军事运力的美国民用飞机组成，但美国机动性历来依赖的更广泛的商业生态系统远远超出了美国运输司令部和民用后备航空舰队本身的能力。
Russian Volga-Dnepr aircraft were once subcontracted through Atlas Air; Russian Polet Airlines aircraft — through United Parcel Service; and Azerbaijan’s Silk Way aircraft — through World Airways, while all three U.S. airlines named were Civil Reserve Air Fleet participants.
俄罗斯伏尔加-第聂伯飞机曾由阿特拉斯航空转包；俄罗斯 Polet 航空公司的飞机 — 通过联合包裹服务公司；以及阿塞拜疆的丝绸之路飞机——通过世界航空公司，而所有被点名的三家美国航空公司都是民用预备役航空队的参与者。
That ecosystem is becoming more politically constrained, reaching commercial relationships as well.
该生态系统在政治上越来越受到限制，商业关系也越来越广泛。
U.S. Transportation Command’s May 2024 Unsuitable Vendor List included Air China Cargo, China Eastern, and China Southern, alongside mainly Russian-origin cargo carriers.
美国运输司令部 2024 年 5 月的不合适供应商名单包括中国国际货运航空、中国东方航空和中国南方航空，以及主要来自俄罗斯的货运航空公司。
Yet separation remains uneven.
但分离仍然不平衡。
Delta, a Civil Reserve Air Fleet participant, terminated its codeshare with China Southern in 2025, while China Eastern remains a Delta partner .
达美航空是民用预备役航空队的参与者，于 2025 年终止了与南航的代码共享，而东航仍然是达美航空的合作伙伴。
United Airlines, another Civil Reserve Air Fleet carrier, maintains a codeshare relationship with Air China.
另一家民用预备役航空队航空公司美国联合航空与中国国际航空保持着代码共享关系。
These partnerships are not part of Civil Reserve Air Fleet missions, but they expose the tension between tighter strategic vetting and continued dependence on a still interconnected civil aviation system.
这些伙伴关系不是民用后备航空队任务的一部分，但它们暴露了更严格的战略审查与持续依赖仍然相互关联的民用航空系统之间的紧张关系。
During the 2021 Afghanistan evacuation , 18 Civil Reserve Air Fleet aircraft were activated but did not fly into Kabul.
2021年阿富汗撤离期间，18架民用后备航空队飞机被激活，但没有飞往喀布尔。
Instead, military aircraft first moved evacuees to intermediate bases, from which civilian carriers moved them onward.
相反，军用飞机首先将撤离人员转移到中间基地，然后民用航母将他们转移到中间基地。
The Civil Reserve Air Fleet aircraft remain civilian, participating airlines retain operational control, continue to operate under civil safety requirements, and can refuse particular missions on operational risk grounds.
民用后备航空队的飞机仍然是民用的，参与的航空公司保留运营控制权，继续按照民用安全要求运营，并可以以运营风险为由拒绝执行特定任务。
Civil Reserve Air Fleet can augment lift, but it cannot “manufacture” overflight rights, politically accessible airports, or operationally acceptable corridors.
民用预备役空军机队可以增加升力，但它无法“制造”飞越权、政治上无障碍的机场或操作上可接受的走廊。
The last three mobility studies by the U.S. government each validated a requirement for 275 strategic airlift aircraft, matching the 52 and 223 in the existing U.S. Transportation Command organic fleet stated above.
美国政府最近三项机动性研究均验证了对 275 架战略空运飞机的需求，与上述美国运输司令部现有建制机队中的 52 架和 223 架飞机相匹配。
The 2026 Congressional Research Service study, however, notes that while 223 aircraft were procured, the U.S. Air Force now operates 222 after a hull loss, and one C-17 belongs to the NATO Strategic Airlift Capability — so the usable organic U.S. Transportation Command fleet is already below the paper figure before any question of political access arises.
然而，国会研究服务处 2026 年的研究指出，虽然采购了 223 架飞机，但美国空军在机身损失后目前运营着 222 架飞机，其中一架 C-17 属于北约战略空运能力——因此，在出现任何政治准入问题之前，可用的美国运输司令部机队数量就已经低于纸面数字。
Those studies also go beyond fleet size.
这些研究还超出了机队规模的范围。
The 2020 Mobility Capability Requirements Study examined contested environments and the wider mobility enterprise — the global network of airfields, seaports, and surface routes together with commercial providers and military capacity.
2020 年移动能力需求研究审查了竞争环境和更广泛的移动企业——机场、海港和地面航线以及商业提供商和军事能力的全球网络。
Although the full study is classified, a senior U.S. Transportation Command official later characterized it as:
尽管完整的研究属于机密，但美国运输司令部的一位高级官员后来将其描述为：
innovative in advancing the joint community’s knowledge on operating within the contested environments in terms of understanding great power adversary capabilities to interdict strategic mobility, affect the timing of force flow into theater, and the impact on the campaign.
在了解大国对手拦截战略机动、影响部队进入战区的时间以及对战役的影响方面的能力方面，创新性地推进了联合社区在有争议的环境中作战的知识。
What remains less visible, though, at least in those studies’ publicly available discourse — also modeling contested access in a theater before 2022 — is a sequential loss of alternatives across several theaters, when the second loss becomes more consequential because the first has already removed another route.
不过，至少在这些研究的公开讨论中（也对 2022 年之前剧院的竞争性访问进行建模）仍然不太明显的是，多个剧院的替代方案连续丢失，当第二个丢失变得更加严重时，因为第一个丢失已经删除了另一条路线。
What happens if the wider civilian network on which military mobility also depends becomes (geo)politically constrained well before actual conflict begins?
如果军事机动性所依赖的更广泛的民用网络在实际冲突开始之前就受到（地缘）政治限制，会发生什么？
And if the disruption mechanism becomes cumulative?
如果破坏机制变得累积呢？
The Ukraine war removes a giant piece of usable aviation geography in northern Eurasia.
乌克兰战争消除了欧亚大陆北部一大片可用的航空地理。
Then, traffic reroutes through alternatives in the Caucasus, Central Asia, and the Gulf, increasing their value.
然后，交通将改道高加索、中亚和海湾地区的其他路线，从而增加其价值。
If one of those southern corridors is later disrupted, the cost of disruption becomes greater because the first crisis already concentrated the network, which can trigger the progressive reduction in politically, commercially, and operationally viable pathways through which civil aviation — and, consequently, U.S. strategic mobility — can function.
如果其中一个南部走廊后来受到干扰，破坏的成本会变得更大，因为第一次危机已经集中了该网络，这可能会导致民用航空以及美国战略机动性发挥作用的政治、商业和运营可行途径逐渐减少。
Developments in the Caucasus since 2022 made that concentration visible.
2022 年以来高加索地区的事态发展使这种集中程度显而易见。
Azerbaijan’s air navigation system handled about 278 flights a day at the beginning of 2022 .
2022年初，阿塞拜疆的空中导航系统每天处理约278个航班。
By the end of 2025, the figure had more than doubled to 695, while annual overflights increased from 47,065 in 2021 to 261,085 in 2025.
到 2025 年底，这一数字增加了一倍多，达到 695 架次，而每年的飞越次数从 2021 年的 47,065 架次增加到 2025 年的 261,085 架次。
After the disruption of Gulf airspace in early 2026, daily traffic rose further.
2026 年初海湾空域中断后，每日交通量进一步增加。
Aircraft themselves followed the same geography when two Boeing 747-400 freighters previously operated by Russia’s Sky Gates left Russia at the end of February 2022 after repossession and, within days, were re-registered in Azerbaijan and operating for Silk Way West Airlines between Baku, Europe, and China.
飞机本身也遵循相同的地理位置，此前由俄罗斯 Sky Gates 运营的两架波音 747-400 货机在收回后于 2022 年 2 月下旬离开俄罗斯，几天之内在阿塞拜疆重新注册，并为丝绸之路西部航空公司运营巴库、欧洲和中国之间的航班。
The commercial network therefore did what aviation networks normally do — it adapted.
因此，商业网络做了航空网络通常所做的事情——它进行了调整。
But adaptation also concentrated more traffic and scarce aircraft in a smaller part of Eurasian geography.
但适应也将更多的交通和稀缺的飞机集中在欧亚大陆的一小部分地区。
And this new concentration created a vulnerability of its own when the South Caucasus corridor faced confrontation risk between Azerbaijan and Armenia from 2023 to 2024 .
当南高加索走廊在2023年至2024年面临阿塞拜疆和亚美尼亚之间的对抗风险时，这种新的集中化也造成了自身的脆弱性。
Smaller disruptions only compound the same problem.
较小的干扰只会使同样的问题变得更加复杂。
Military tensions around Israel have repeatedly emptied parts of the Eastern Mediterranean airline network , the May 2025 Indian-Pakistani confrontation pushed traffic south toward Oman and the Gulf, and recurrent military activity around the Korean Peninsula and Taiwan places further pressure on Northeast Asian routes.
以色列周边的军事紧张局势一再导致部分东地中海航线网络空空如也，2025 年 5 月的印度与巴基斯坦对峙导致交通向南流向阿曼和海湾地区，朝鲜半岛和台湾周围频繁的军事活动给东北亚航线带来了进一步的压力。
Taken together with the larger disruptions caused by the wars in Ukraine and Iran, these smaller shocks further consume the alternatives on which the Eurasian aviation network increasingly depends.
加上乌克兰和伊朗战争造成的较大破坏，这些较小的冲击进一步消耗了欧亚航空网络日益依赖的替代方案。
The Gulf shows the same concentration.
海湾地区也表现出同样的集中度。
Dubai handled a record 95.2 million passengers in 2025 , up 3.1 percent year on year, while Middle Eastern airports’ connectivity rose 28 percent in 2024 and intercontinental connectivity stood 16 percent above pre-pandemic levels.
2025 年，迪拜的旅客吞吐量达到创纪录的 9520 万人次，同比增长 3.1%，而中东机场的连通性在 2024 年增长了 28%，洲际连通性比大流行前的水平高出 16%。
That growth has many causes, but once northern European-Asian geography became unavailable to many Western carriers after 2022, the Gulf became more important as an east-west bridge.
这种增长有多种原因，但一旦 2022 年之后许多西方航空公司无法获得北欧-亚洲航线，海湾作为东西方桥梁就变得更加重要。
Then the Gulf itself was hit.
然后海湾本身也受到了袭击。
The 2026 Iran war brought airport closures, airline cancellations, and rerouting .
2026 年伊朗战争导致机场关闭、航班取消和航线变更。
Dubai handled 31.5 million passengers in the first half of 2026 , down 31.3 percent year on year, and aircraft movements fell 32.1 percent.
2026年上半年，迪拜旅客吞吐量为3150万人次，同比下降31.3%，飞机起降量下降32.1%。
With Russian airspace already unavailable to Western operators, the Iran war disrupted the southern Eurasian alternatives on which the network had become more dependent.
由于西方运营商已经无法使用俄罗斯领空，伊朗战争扰乱了该网络变得更加依赖的欧亚南部替代方案。
On March 31, 2026, EUROCONTROL recorded 56 percent fewer flights between the Middle East and Europe , including services overflying Europe to and from North America.
2026 年 3 月 31 日，EUROCONTROL 记录，中东和欧洲之间的航班减少了 56%，其中包括飞越欧洲往返北美的航班。
This episode showed why a second loss of geography can be more consequential after the first one has already removed an alternative.
这一事件说明了为什么在第一次失去地理位置后，第二次失去地理可能会产生更大的后果。
The military network adapted to the same geography.
军事网络适应相同的地理位置。
Ahead of the Iran war in February 2026 , the United States moved around 150 military aircraft into Europe and the Middle East, with more than half of the newly deployed aircraft positioned at bases in Europe to remain beyond Iran’s missile reach.
在 2026 年 2 月伊朗战争爆发之前，美国向欧洲和中东派遣了约 150 架军用飞机，其中一半以上新部署的飞机部署在欧洲的基地，以保持在伊朗导弹射程之外。
That distance had to be bridged.
必须弥合这一距离。
In May, U.S. Air Force KC-135 tankers launched from the European Command area to refuel B-1 bombers operating over the Central Command area , making European airfields part of the support architecture for Middle East operations.
5 月，美国空军 KC-135 加油机从欧洲司令部地区起飞，为在中央司令部地区执行任务的 B-1 轰炸机加油，使欧洲机场成为中东行动支持架构的一部分。
Political access compressed that architecture further when Spain denied its airspace and bases to U.S. aircraft supporting attacks on Iran .
当西班牙拒绝为支持袭击伊朗的美国飞机提供其领空和基地时，政治准入进一步压缩了这一架构。
Fifteen U.S. military aircraft relocated from Rota and Morón after the Spanish refusal , most of them KC-135 tankers, with at least seven moving to Ramstein in Germany.
西班牙拒绝后，15 架美国军用飞机从罗塔和莫龙迁出，其中大多数是 KC-135 加油机，至少有 7 架迁往德国拉姆施泰因。
The Spanish case illustrates a different form of access denial from the Russian one, where the closure was adversarial, structural, and very durable.
西班牙的案例展示了与俄罗斯不同的拒绝访问形式，俄罗斯的关闭是对抗性的、结构性的，而且非常持久。
The Spanish case was still allied, issue-specific, and politically more reversible.
西班牙案仍然是联盟性的、针对具体问题的，并且在政治上更具可逆性。
As a result, air mobility still existed, and the distances were still physically “flyable,” but the number of (geo)politically usable places from which the mission could actually be supported had shrunk.
结果，空中机动性仍然存在，物理上“可飞行”的距离仍然存在，但实际上可以支持任务的（地理）政治可用地点的数量已经减少。
Finally, wider Europe itself is now the region where several forms of similar “air mobility compression” overlap.
最后，更广泛的欧洲本身现在也是多种类似“空中流动压缩”形式重叠的地区。
In summer 2025, EUROCONTROL estimated that it controlled only about 80 percent of the airspace available before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine .
2025 年夏季，欧洲空中航行安全组织 (EUROCONTROL) 估计，在俄罗斯入侵乌克兰之前，它仅控制了约 80% 的可用空域。
In the same year, the conflict expanded with radio-frequency interference reportedly originating from Russia .
同年，冲突因据报道源自俄罗斯的无线电频率干扰而扩大。
This is happening while Europe is simultaneously trying to move more military traffic through civil airport networks.
与此同时，欧洲正试图通过民用机场网络转移更多的军事交通。
In particular, the European Union adopted four priority multimodal military-mobility corridors in March 2025 .
特别是，欧盟于 2025 年 3 月通过了四个优先多式联运军事机动走廊。
Under the 2021 to 2027 Connecting Europe Facility, 1.69 billion euros (about $1.9 billion) was allocated for military mobility .
根据2021年至2027年欧洲互联互通基金，16.9亿欧元（约合19亿美元）被分配用于军事机动性。
The European Commission now treats ports, airports, bridges, tunnels, and energy and communications nodes as strategic dual-use infrastructure, while acknowledging increased subcontracting of military operations to civilian carriers.
欧盟委员会现在将港口、机场、桥梁、隧道以及能源和通信节点视为战略军民两用基础设施，同时承认越来越多的军事行动转包给民用航空公司。
Airspace or airport infrastructure is not the only part of Eurasian aviation becoming “geopoliticized.” The aircraft themselves are now sometimes geopolitical assets.
空域或机场基础设施并不是欧亚航空业变得“地缘政治化”的唯一部分。现在，飞机本身有时就是地缘政治资产。
This applies especially to the widebody airlift, where the most useful aircraft are finite — no longer being produced — and difficult to replace.
这尤其适用于宽体空运，其中最有用的飞机是有限的——不再生产——并且难以更换。
Boeing no longer produces either the 747 or the C-17.
波音公司不再生产 747 或 C-17。
The Soviet-built Antonov An-124 fleet is similarly limited.
苏联建造的安东诺夫 An-124 机队也同样有限。
The remaining aircraft are also performing several roles at once.
其余的飞机也同时执行多种任务。
Atlas Air, Kalitta Air, and National Airlines — all participants in the Civil Reserve Air Fleet program — have used Boeing 747 freighters under U.S. defense contracts to transport weapons to Europe for Ukraine.
阿特拉斯航空、卡利塔航空和国家航空——所有民用储备航空机队计划的参与者——都根据美国国防合同使用波音 747 货机为乌克兰运送武器到欧洲。
The same commercial fleets simultaneously remained part of more and more disrupted global trade.
同样的商业船队同时仍然是越来越混乱的全球贸易的一部分。
Immobilizing one part of that fleet removes capacity from all potential users.
固定该车队的一部分会消除所有潜在用户的容量。
The fate of Russian AirBridgeCargo’s Boeing 747-8 freighter fleet stranded in Moscow since 2022 illustrates the point.
自 2022 年以来，俄罗斯空桥货运公司 (AirBridgeCargo) 的波音 747-8 货机机队滞留在莫斯科的命运就说明了这一点。
The airline ceased operations in 2022, and Western lessors pursued the return of the aircraft through litigation and government channels without recovering a single AirBridgeCargo aircraft from Russia.
该航空公司于 2022 年停止运营，西方出租商通过诉讼和政府渠道寻求归还飞机，但没有从俄罗斯收回任何一架 AirBridgeCargo 飞机。
Russian authorities had little economic reason to retain the fleet: by AirBridgeCargo’s own estimates, its 747-8 fleet provided roughly 1 million tons of annual capacity prewar, versus no more than 150,000 tons a year for Russia’s entire international air cargo market.
俄罗斯当局没有什么经济理由保留这支机队：根据 AirBridgeCargo 自己的估计，其 747-8 机队在战前提供了大约 100 万吨的年运力，而俄罗斯整个国际航空货运市场的年运力不超过 15 万吨。
More than a dozen 747-8 freighter aircraft have consequently spent years parked at Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow, unable to perform the international role for which the fleet was built.
因此，十几架 747-8 货机在莫斯科谢列梅捷沃机场停泊了数年，无法履行该机队的国际职能。
The market did try to find “another way through.” In the spring and summer of 2022, AirBridgeCargo and the U.A.E.-based Etihad discussed a structure under which the 747 fleet could be moved outside Russia and operated through the Abu Dhabi hub, with aircraft and crews effectively re-established there.
市场确实试图寻找“另一种出路”。 2022 年春季和夏季，AirBridgeCargo 和总部位于阿联酋的阿提哈德航空讨论了一种结构，根据该结构，747 机队可以移至俄罗斯境外并通过阿布扎比枢纽运营，飞机和机组人员可以在那里有效地重新安置。
AirBridgeCargo also sought permission from Russian authorities to return leased aircraft abroad .
AirBridgeCargo 还向俄罗斯当局寻求许可，将租赁的飞机归还国外。
The commercial logic was straightforward — international demand for freighter capacity remained strong, while keeping such a large 747 fleet inside the much smaller Russian cargo market made little economic sense.
商业逻辑很简单——国际对货机运力的需求仍然强劲，而将如此庞大的 747 机队保留在规模小得多的俄罗斯货运市场内几乎没有经济意义。
Yet, the proposed economic solution did not materialize as political restrictions surrounded transactions because Russian actions in Ukraine overtook that commercial logic.
然而，由于俄罗斯在乌克兰的行动超越了商业逻辑，交易受到政治限制，拟议的经济解决方案并未实现。
Aviation could relocate the business model, but it could not remove political factors attached to the aircraft.
航空业可以重新定位商业模式，但无法消除与飞机相关的政治因素。
The AirBridgeCargo fleet immobilization, therefore, cannot be understood only in commercial terms.
因此，AirBridgeCargo 机队的固定不能仅从商业角度来理解。
In the Russian case, the aircraft caught in the geopolitical confrontation have acquired some of the characteristics of “trophies,” in which possession itself became politically valuable even when the asset was economically unnecessary.
在俄罗斯的案例中，陷入地缘政治对抗的飞机已经获得了一些“战利品”的特征，其中拥有本身就具有政治价值，即使该资产在经济上是不必要的。
A different mechanism can be seen in Canada and Germany, which continue to hold Russian-linked Antonov An-124s at Toronto Pearson and Leipzig airports , respectively, under their own seizure orders based on sanctions and judicial measures.
加拿大和德国采取了不同的机制，根据制裁和司法措施，根据各自的扣押令，继续分别在多伦多皮尔逊机场和莱比锡机场扣押与俄罗斯有关的安东诺夫 An-124。
The legal and political circumstances are not the same.
法律和政治环境并不相同。
But different mechanisms are producing the same result when aircraft become part of geopolitics rather than just commercial assets.
但当飞机成为地缘政治的一部分而不仅仅是商业资产时，不同的机制会产生相同的结果。
Another contrast becomes sharper in the case of Bank of China-controlled lessor BOC Aviation.
另一个对比在中国银行控股的出租人中银航空租赁的案例中变得更加鲜明。
After winning a $406.2 million judgment against AirBridgeCargo in New York , the lessor — just like its Western peers — still could not recover two 747-8 freighters from Russia.
在纽约赢得对 AirBridgeCargo 4.062 亿美元的赔偿后，这家出租人与西方同行一样，仍然无法从俄罗斯收回两架 747-8 货机。
However, within months after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s October 2023 visit to Beijing , Russian authorities suddenly permitted the two BOC aircraft to leave in March 2024 — an outcome Western lessors had been unable to obtain.
然而，在俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔·普京 (Vladimir Putin) 2023 年 10 月访问北京后的几个月内，俄罗斯当局突然允许中国银行的两架飞机于 2024 年 3 月离开——这是西方租赁商无法获得的结果。
A subsequent English High Court judgment concluded that China’s status as a “friendly” country was likely part of why their return proved possible.
英国高等法院随后的一项判决得出的结论是，中国作为“友好”国家的地位可能是他们得以返回的部分原因。
Even more telling, months later, Atlas Air put the same two aircraft into service in the United States.
更能说明问题的是，几个月后，阿特拉斯航空将同样的两架飞机在美国投入使用。
The episode is a perfect illustration of contested mobility in today’s world: geopolitics determined whether and where the aircraft could move, and the global market determined where that scarce capacity was ultimately most valuable.
这一事件完美地说明了当今世界存在争议的机动性：地缘政治决定了飞机是否可以移动以及在哪里移动，而全球市场则决定了稀缺的运力最终在哪里最有价值。
Scarcity adds another layer.
稀缺性又增加了一层。
Boeing ended C-17 production in 2015 , and the final 747 was delivered in 2023 .
波音公司于 2015 年结束了 C-17 的生产，最终的 747 飞机于 2023 年交付。
At the same time, demand for the capabilities these aircraft provide is increasing.
与此同时，对这些飞机提供的能力的需求也在不断增加。
For instance, in 2025, more than two-thirds of the value of global trade in AI-related goods moved by air , including, specifically, 747s, because some AI server racks are now so large , they increasingly require specific 747 freighter capabilities like a nose cargo door.
例如，到 2025 年，全球人工智能相关货物贸易额的三分之二以上通过航空运输，特别是 747，因为一些人工智能服务器机架现在非常大，它们越来越需要特定的 747 货机功能，例如机头货舱门。
The wars in Ukraine and Iran add further pressure by increasing military airlift requirements , lengthening routes, and concentrating demand on a finite pool of long-range cargo aircraft.
乌克兰和伊朗的战争增加了军事空运需求、延长航线以及将需求集中在有限的远程货机上，从而进一步增加了压力。
Against that backdrop, in September 2026, an E.U.-funded study on strategic airlift has identified two options for sustaining Europe’s outsized cargo capacity — a deep modernization of the Ukrainian Antonov An-124s or the development of a new European aircraft to replace the C-17s.
在此背景下，2026 年 9 月，一项由欧盟资助的战略空运研究确定了维持欧洲超大型货运能力的两种选择：对乌克兰安东诺夫 An-124 进行深度现代化或开发新型欧洲飞机来取代 C-17。
This “mobility compression” is not exclusively a Western problem.
这种“流动性压缩”并不完全是西方的问题。
Russian airlines have lost access to much of Western aircraft leasing , manufacturer support, parts, and maintenance networks.
俄罗斯航空公司已经失去了大部分西方飞机租赁、制造商支持、零部件和维护网络。
The effect, however, is not symmetrical.
然而，效果并不对称。
Modern Russia never possessed an equivalent of the extraordinarily wide global mobility ecosystem on which the United States could rely.
现代俄罗斯从未拥有像美国可以依赖的极其广泛的全球流动生态系统。
U.S. Transportation Command itself argues that no other nation or combination of nations can generate comparable global airlift output .
美国运输司令部本身认为，没有其他国家或国家组合能够产生可比的全球空运产量。
China illustrates another asymmetry.
中国体现了另一种不对称现象。
Its airlines have retained access to Russian airspace and gained a geographical advantage over many Western competitors.
其航空公司保留了进入俄罗斯领空的权利，并获得了相对于许多西方竞争对手的地理优势。
But much of the heavy freighter capacity with which Chinese carriers exploit trans-Siberian airspace still depends on American-built aircraft.
但中国航空公司利用西伯利亚空域的重型货机运力在很大程度上仍然依赖于美国制造的飞机。
Nearly 60 Boeing 777 freighters are operated by 6 Chinese carriers , while SF Airlines — China’s largest all-cargo airline by fleet — relies entirely on Boeing types, including 747s and 767s for its long-haul network.
近 60 架波音 777 货机由 6 家中国航空公司运营，而中国机队规模最大的全货运航空公司顺丰航空的长途网络完全依赖波音机型，包括 747 和 767。
That dependence is now itself becoming “geopolitical.” After almost a decade without a major Chinese Boeing order, aircraft deliveries and future purchases became part of the wider U.S.-Chinese trade negotiations.
这种依赖现在本身正在变得“地缘政治”。在近十年没有获得中国波音公司的重大订单之后，飞机交付和未来采购成为更广泛的美中贸易谈判的一部分。
China agreed in 2026 to a prospective 200-aircraft Boeing package while also beginning to diversify — Air China Cargo has ordered 10 Airbus A350 freighters.
中国于 2026 年同意购买 200 架波音飞机，同时也开始多元化——国货航已订购 10 架空客 A350 货机。
Finally, Russia itself demonstrated what access can make possible in Eurasia immediately before its “special military operation” against Ukraine.
最后，俄罗斯在对乌克兰实施“特别军事行动”之前就展示了进入欧亚大陆的可能性。
During the January 2022 Collective Security Treaty Organization intervention in Kazakhstan, more than 70 Il-76s and five An-124s were assembled for rapid deployment after President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev requested assistance.
2022 年 1 月集体安全条约组织对哈萨克斯坦进行干预期间，在总统卡西姆-乔马尔特·托卡耶夫请求援助后，集结了 70 多架 Il-76 和 5 架 An-124 进行快速部署。
The episode shows that aircraft can generate exceptional mobility when the political relationship opens the geography.
这一事件表明，当政治关系打开地理范围时，飞机可以产生非凡的机动性。
But they cannot by themselves guarantee that the same geography will remain available in the next crisis.
但它们本身无法保证在下一次危机中仍然可以使用相同的地理位置。
After 9/11, aviation security was reorganized around protecting aircraft and airports, screening passengers, baggage, and cargo.
9/11 事件后，航空安全围绕保护飞机和机场、检查乘客、行李和货物进行了重组。
With today’s geopolitical environment, the object of protection should expand to the whole network that makes movement possible — airspace, navigation, fuel, power, cargo handling , maintenance, communications, insurance, alternative airports, industrial supply, and political access.
在当今的地缘政治环境下，保护对象应扩大到使移动成为可能的整个网络——空域、导航、燃料、电力、货物装卸、维护、通信、保险、替代机场、工业供应和政治准入。
The question is not simply whether European-Asian traffic can route around Russia or Iran, but what remains if Russian airspace or parts of the Gulf airspace remain disrupted for Western operators for years to come — especially if that disruption ever overlaps with European navigation interference, the loss of a major E.U.
问题不仅仅是欧亚交通是否可以绕行俄罗斯或伊朗，而是如果俄罗斯领空或部分海湾领空在未来几年继续受到西方运营商的干扰，那么剩下的是什么——特别是如果这种干扰与欧洲导航干扰重叠，欧盟失去一个主要的航空母舰。
cargo hub, or a major escalation of Russian-NATO tensions.
货运枢纽，或俄罗斯与北约紧张局势大幅升级。
For the Pentagon and its allies in Eurasia, civil aviation should be mapped as an integral part of military mobility, including which carriers or maintenance facilities are politically and operationally usable, which airports become essential during mobilisation, where military and civilian users compete for fuel, which alternative corridors survive, and what happens to strategic mobility when routes become several hours longer.
对于五角大楼及其在欧亚大陆的盟友来说，民用航空应该被视为军事机动性的一个组成部分，包括哪些航母或维护设施在政治和操作上可用，哪些机场在动员过程中变得至关重要，军事和民用用户争夺燃料，哪些替代走廊能够生存，以及当航线延长几个小时时战略机动性会发生什么。
For decades, American power benefited from a physical globalization dividend .
几十年来，美国实力受益于实体全球化红利。
Much of the world contained functioning airports, commercial aircraft, maintenance, fuel, communications, and accessible airspace.
世界大部分地区都有正常运转的机场、商用飞机、维护、燃料、通讯和可进入的空域。
The United States did not need to own the whole system to derive military value from it.
美国不需要拥有整个系统才能从中获得军事价值。
The Civil Reserve Air Fleet and NATO’s commercially organized Ukrainian Antonov lift through the Strategic Airlift International Solution initiative are both expressions of that dividend.
民用预备役空军机队和北约通过战略空运国际解决方案倡议商业组织的乌克兰安东诺夫空运都是这种红利的体现。
But as the international system in Eurasia fragments, an aircraft may exist but be unavailable, an airport may be open but politically inaccessible, an air corridor may be legally open but commercially unacceptable, and a fleet may still contain 275 strategic airlift aircraft, while the surrounding geopolitics reduces its usability.
但随着欧亚大陆的国际体系支离破碎，飞机可能存在但无法使用，机场可能开放但政治上无法进入，空中走廊可能合法开放但商业上不可接受，机队可能仍拥有275架战略空运飞机，而周围的地缘政治降低了其可用性。
That is the fundamental change underway since 2022.
这是 2022 年以来正在发生的根本性变化。
Geopolitics is no longer just “interrupting” global aviation — it is reshaping the architecture through which global mobility is possible.
地缘政治不再只是“干扰”全球航空业——它正在重塑全球流动性成为可能的架构。
If the air transport ecosystem in Eurasia becomes geographically narrower, politically more conditional, and industrially harder to reproduce, the strategic value of every remaining route, aircraft, hub, and commercial partner rises — and so does the cost of losing one.
如果欧亚大陆的航空运输生态系统在地理上变得更狭窄，在政治上受到更多条件限制，在工业上更难以复制，那么每条剩余航线、飞机、枢纽和商业合作伙伴的战略价值都会上升，失去一条的成本也会上升。
The Pentagon should therefore treat contested mobility in Eurasia not simply as a fleet-sizing problem, but as a network resilience problem.
因此，五角大楼不应仅仅将欧亚大陆的机动性争议视为机队规模问题，而应视为网络弹性问题。
The task could be assessing the amount of usable lift after the sequential loss of airspace, hubs, political access, commercial carriers, and scarce aircraft types — along with pre-negotiating the alternative overflight rights, commercial capacity, and industrial options needed before a crisis begins.
这项任务可能是评估空域、枢纽、政治准入、商业航空公司和稀缺飞机类型相继丧失后的可用升力量，以及在危机开始之前预先谈判所需的替代飞越权、商业能力和工业选择。
Much of that is already being implemented when U.S. Transportation Command leads the Joint Deployment and Distribution Enterprise, and studies contested mobility.
当美国运输司令部领导联合部署和配送企业并研究有争议的机动性时，其中大部分已经得到实施。
What appears to be missing from the public debate is a requirement to conceptualize, assess, and prepare for the cumulative geographical loss of access across multiple theaters at the same time — a dynamic that is already becoming visible across Eurasia.
公共辩论中似乎缺少的是对同时跨多个战区的累积地理访问丧失进行概念化、评估和准备的要求——这种动态已经在整个欧亚大陆变得显而易见。
The relevant question should not be simply whether the United States possesses “275 strategic airlift aircraft,” but how much effective mobility those aircraft can deliver if access to Russian airspace, Gulf transit hubs, and major European or Asian hubs is degraded or denied simultaneously.
相关问题不应该只是美国是否拥有“275架战略空运飞机”，而是如果进入俄罗斯领空、海湾中转枢纽以及欧洲或亚洲主要枢纽的通道同时受到削弱或被拒绝，这些飞机能够提供多少有效机动性。
Alex Kolbin is a London-based geopolitical risk analyst and director of ELSER Consulting, a boutique intelligence firm.
Alex Kolbin 是一位驻伦敦的地缘政治风险分析师，也是一家精品情报公司 ELSER Consulting 的总监。
After a decade in the global aviation industry, several years at the PIR Center in Moscow working on nonproliferation and arms control, and experience with the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Kolbin now focuses his work on the implications of regional conflicts for global supply chains and wider geopolitical competition.
科尔宾在全球航空业工作了十年，在莫斯科 PIR 中心从事防扩散和军备控制工作几年，并在斯德哥尔摩国际和平研究所工作过，现在他的工作重点是地区冲突对全球供应链和更广泛的地缘政治竞争的影响。