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The British Army
英国军队
A changing force
变化的力量
The British Army is taking on a radical new shape
英国军队正在发生彻底的改头换面
LIEUTENANT Christopher Hill is one of the last of his kind. The 25-year-old chose to join his unit, the fourth battalion of the Royal Regiment of Scotland, because he knew it was earmarked for one of the British Army's final deployments to Afghanistan. “I wanted to get an operational tour while I can,” he explains, standing by a six-wheeled Mastiff armoured vehicle.
克里斯托弗赫尔中尉是他所属兵种的最后一个人。这个25岁的年轻人选择加入的部队是苏格兰皇家第四部队，因为他了解到这是英国军队最后一次为阿富汗调度的部队之一。他站在六个轮子的装甲车上解释说：“我想在可以的情况下获得一次实战的经历”。
The last British outstation in southern Afghanistan, an observation post called Sterga 2 above the Helmand river, closed in May. Camp Bastion is the only base left. The army will cease combat operations in Afghanistan at the end of 2014—a timetable determined by Barack Obama, but which, as one soldier points out, happily provides a four-month buffer before the 2015 general election. As a 13-year campaign winds down, the army will change dramatically.
在阿富汗南部的最后一个边哨所于五月份撤销。该哨所叫做斯特格，位于赫尔曼德河之上。堡垒军营是唯一留下的军事基地。这支军队将在2014年末取消在阿富汗的军事行动——该日期是由奥巴马决定的。但是一位士兵也指出，这为2015年的大选提供了四个月的缓冲区。随着13年的军事活动落下帷幕，该部队将迅速转型。
Next month Lieutenant-General Sir Nick Carter will take over as chief of the general staff. The army's new boss is also its architect: asked to find savings of 5.3 billion ($8.9 billion), he devised a plan to cut the number of full-time soldiers from 102,000 to 82,000 by 2018. But some are sceptical. A report by Parliament's defence committee earlier this year doubted whether the plan will meet Britain's security needs.
下个月，中将尼克卡特爵士将以总参谋长的身份接管。该部队的新上司也是其缔造者：为了节省53亿英镑，他修订了一个计划，在2018年将全职的士兵从10，200削减到82，000人。但是有人也存在质疑。议会的防卫委员会今年早期的一个报告质疑该计划是否满足英国的国防需要。
According to a senior British officer in Afghanistan, the army at first wished to restructure the infantry by cutting two Scottish battalions. That suggestion caused a row and is no longer on the table. Instead some battalions will have fewer regular soldiers. During operations numbers will be boosted by paired reservist units providing up to one rifleman in three. Overall, across the army, reservist numbers will increase from 19,000 to 30,000.
阿富汗的一位英国高级官员表明，部队首先希望能够通过削减两个苏格兰军营的人数而达到重建步兵团的目的，这一建议引起了人们的愤怒最终没有付诸实施。相反，某些军营的正规士兵少之又少。在军事行动中，加入预备役部队，士兵数量飙升，其中三个人里面就有一个是步兵。总的来说，全军的预备役军人数将从19,000 上升到 30,000。
Reservists can work well. Lieutenant Colonel Graham Johnson, commanding officer of a medical regiment in Afghanistan, said part-timers make up 10% of his unit. “The military offer a lot of leadership skills and development at the lower level,” he explains. “And we benefit from their clinical competence.” But with infantry the situation is trickier. There are too few reservists, and many are unable to drop their civilian jobs at short notice. Regular commanders calling on their reservists could receive fewer than they need.
预备役军人也能做得很好。阿富汗医疗团的指挥官格雷姆·约翰中尉称，他的单位兼职人员占了10%。他解释道“军队提供了大量的领导技能和低水平的发展，我们从他们完善的医疗能力中获益匪浅。”但是在预备役中，这种情况更为棘手。几乎没有预备军人，许多都无法一得到通知就停止原有的普通工作。正规军的司令认为预备军人拿到的工资可能比所需的更少。
The army has advertised heavily for reservists, and increased the bounties paid to regular soldiers leaving the army who join the part-timers. But Britain lacks the legal and cultural apparatus to sustain a large reserve. In America part-time soldiers who fail to show up face serious sanctions; employers keep reservists' jobs open. By contrast the British Territorial Army, recently renamed the “Army Reserve”, has been a more amateur affair, regarded by some as a drinking club. One London-based reservist, who has completed an Afghanistan tour, wryly said his bosses regard him as comparable to a maternity risk.
军队强烈宣传预备役招兵，并提高了正规军退役成为兼职军人的奖金金额。但是英国缺乏法律和文化制约来维持大量的预备役。在美国，兼职军人没有按时报到会受到严厉的制裁；雇主也为现役军人大开大门。相比而言，最近被更名为“陆军预备役”的英国的地方自卫队更多的是一种业余的工作，被有些人与酒吧一类的场所相提并论。一位伦敦的预备役军人，刚刚结束了阿富汗之旅，讽刺地说他的老板们对他的重视程度不亚于孕妇。
A recent survey showed that only 42% of regular soldiers who had worked with reservists saw them as professional. Even fewer thought they were well integrated. “The army know they have to be seen to make the arrangement with the reserves work, although privately they doubt that it will”, says Professor Michael Clarke, director-general of the Royal United Services Institute, a defence think-tank.
最近一项研究表明，与预备役军人工作过的正规军，只有42%认为他们是职业军人。几乎没有人认为自己能够融入这个团体。皇家国防联合服务研究所的专家迈克尔·克拉克表示，“军队知道自己必须要做得看起来为预备役做得安排有成效，尽管私底下他们也对此很怀疑” 。
The reforms could also create fissures among full-time soldiers. Under the plans, the army will be split into “reactive” and “adaptive” forces. The reactive side's job is conventional fighting, though it will have fewer tanks than formerly. The adaptive force will sit at lower readiness. It will train foreign troops, something “the British military has done ever since the early days of empire”, says General Sir Peter Wall, the current chief of the general staff.
该改革也可能在全职军人中引起纷争。军队按计划将被分为“作战型”和“防御型”两种。反抗性部队的工作是传统的打仗，，尽管其所拥有的坦克与之前比起来没有差别。而适应性部队的准备机能较低。它将训练外国部队，当前的总参谋长皮特·瓦尔称其有点像“英国军队自帝国早期就开始做的那样”。
Because the reactive force will be first to deploy to a major crisis, the new system risks creating a two-tier army. The problem is potentially acute in the Royal Armoured Corps, operators of Britain's tanks. Regiments there will be permanently streamed to the reactive or adaptive forces, with fewer opportunities to cross-post soldiers than in larger infantry outfits with feet in both camps. Adding this fuel to the existing rivalries between regiments is a risk.
因为反抗性军队将会率先部署解决一个主要的危机，新体制创造一个两层的军队结构。潜伏在皇家坦克部队，即英国坦克部队的问题非常尖锐。部队自此将分为作战型部队和防御型部队，而那些夹在中间的士兵的机会就比擅长两种作战方式的少了许多。将这一计划用在军队上无疑会加剧危险。
But the most obvious change to the armed forces is a straightforward one: Britain will probably not be engaged in a major foreign war in the near future. That may hamper recruiting. It will also divide those entitled to wear operational-services medals and those who are not. This is why officers are keen to get whatever residual action they can. “There were very competent guys who I went through training with who were just unfortunate, they didn't go to the right place at the right time and they didn't get an operational tour,” says Lieutenant Hill. Still, he knows his billet is more comfortable than his predecessors endured. He regrets the fact that, since he is based in Camp Bastion rather than an austere forward base, he can go to a shop and eat an ice cream.
但是军队最明显的改变是非常直截了当的:英国可能在近期不会再加入大型的境外战争。这可能会影响新兵征募。这也会将那些参加过实战的军人和未参加过的分开来。这就是为什么军官非常热衷于参加剩下的战斗的原因。赫尔中尉说，“和我一起训练过的战友都是很有能力的，但是不幸的是，他们不能在合适的时间去到合适的地方，因而无法参加实战”。而且，他认为自己目前的宿舍比之前的人更为舒适。他感到遗憾的是，自从他从严峻的前线基地回到堡垒军营以后，他竟然可以去商店买冰淇淋吃了。
