Early one morning this month, 864 Army paratroopers bundled into C-17 transport planes at a base in Alaska and took off for a Great Power War exercise between three volcanic mountains on Hawaii’s Big Island.

本月的一个清晨，864名陆军伞兵从阿拉斯加的一个基地匆忙登上几架C-17运输机，前往夏威夷大岛上的三座火山之间参加一场名为“大国战争”演习。

Only 492 made it. Some of the C-17s had trouble with their doors, while others were forced to land early. A few of the parachutists who did make it sprained ankles or suffered head trauma. And one — a 19-year-old private — began to fall quickly when his chute did not open.

最终只有492人成功抵达。一些C-17运输机的舱门出现了问题，还有一些被迫提前降落。有一小部分成功降落的伞兵或是扭伤了脚踝、或是头部受伤。其中一名19岁的士兵降落伞没能打开，在高速坠落。

Across the field, shouts of “pull your reserve” could be heard before the young private hit the ground and medics ran to treat him. The horrifying scene and its aftermath encapsulate every jumper’s worst nightmare.

在这名年轻的士兵落地前，场地四处可以听到“拉开副伞”的喊声，医护人员跑上前去对他进行救治。这骇人的场景及其后果浓缩了每个伞兵最可怕的噩梦。

But Pvt. Second Class Erik Partida’s 1,200-foot fall was also a stark reality check as the U.S. Army transforms itself, and its hundreds of thousands of young men and women, for yet another war, this one a potential conflict with China.

但随着美国陆军及其数十万年轻男女士兵在为了又一场战争而转型——这一次可能是与中国的潜在冲突，二等兵埃里克·帕蒂达从约360米高空的坠落提醒着人们现实的严峻。

The Pentagon calls it a Great Power War, and it would be exponentially more dangerous. It would put the world’s two strongest militaries — both of them nuclear superpowers — in direct conflict, possibly drawing in other nuclear adversaries, including North Korea and Russia. U.S. troops would be killed, in numbers that could possibly go beyond the toll from America’s deadliest conflicts.

五角大楼将其称为“大国战争”，而这场战争的危险程度将急剧增加。它将使世界上两个最强大的军事力量（两国均为拥核超级大国）直接发生冲突，并可能将包括朝鲜和俄罗斯在内的其他核对手卷入其中。届时将会有美国士兵阵亡，数量可能超过美国以往最致命的冲突。

Such a war would be fought on the ground, at sea, in the air and in space. So the Army is practicing for exactly that.

这样的战争将在陆、海、空和太空中进行。因此，陆军正在为此进行演练。

Forget the Marines, who can get anywhere quickly, because they travel light. Or the Navy, which practically lives in the Pacific. Those services, which featured heavily in the Pacific during World War II, have the planning for a conflict in Asia baked into their DNA.

海军陆战队就不用说了，他们可以轻装上阵，迅速到达任何地方。海军也一样，他们基本上已经在太平洋住下了。对这些“二战”期间在太平洋发挥重要作用的军种来说，为一场亚洲冲突做准备，本来就是它们DNA的一部分。

But now, as the chances of war with China increase, the big and cumbersome Army is trying to transform itself after two decades of fighting terrorism in Afghanistan and the Middle East. Unlike the Taliban or other insurgents, China will have satellites that can see troop formations from the sky. The Army must, in essence, learn how to fly under the radar.

但如今，随着与中国开战的可能性增加，在阿富汗和中东地区打击恐怖主义20年后，庞大而笨重的陆军正试图转型。与塔利班或其他叛乱分子不同，中国拥有可以从空中看到部队编队的卫星。根本上讲，陆军必须学会如何隐秘行动。

Former President Donald J. Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris have outlined vastly different approaches to Russia’s war in Ukraine. Their approaches to turmoil in the Middle East are also expected to be at least rhetorically different.

针对俄罗斯在乌克兰发动的战争，前总统特朗普和副总统贺锦丽分别概述了截然不同的策略。在中东动荡局势方面，预计两人的应对策略至少在言辞上也将有所区别。

But no matter who wins in November, the United States will continue to prepare for war with China.

但无论谁在11月获胜，美国都将继续为与中国的战争做准备。

Beijing has made clear that it will seek to expand its power in Asia, from militarizing uninhabited rocks in the Pacific to claiming sovereignty over international waters. And all of that starts with Taiwan, which President Xi Jinping has ordered the Chinese military to be ready to invade by 2027.

从将太平洋上杳无人迹的礁石军事化，到宣称对国际水域的主权，北京已明确表示将寻求扩大其在亚洲的力量。所有这一切都从台湾开始，习近平已下令中国军队做好在2027年前入侵台湾的准备。

While Taiwan has its own defenses, military experts say it is difficult to see how the island would repel a Chinese invasion without U.S. help. Such a move would be a decision for whoever is president at the time, but American policymakers worry that staying out of it may not be an option if the United States wants to maintain its dominance.

虽然台湾有自己的防御系统，但军事专家表示，如果没有美国的帮助，很难想象台湾如何能击退中国的入侵。如何应对将由当时的总统来决定，但美国政策制定者担忧，如果美国想保持其主导地位，恐怕是不能考虑置身事外的。

‘Tyranny of Distance’

 “距离的暴政”

The U.S. Army knows how hard it would be to invade Taiwan.

美国陆军知道入侵台湾有多难。

During World War II, when the island was called Formosa and was occupied by Japan, the Joint Chiefs of Staff came up with Operation Causeway, an invasion plan that would give the United States a base closer to Japan from which to attack. Gen. Douglas MacArthur opposed invading Taiwan as too risky; it meant crossing a contested sea to fight on complex terrain against a well-defended army. Military planners said an amphibious assault on the island would have been far harder than the D-Day landings at Normandy.

“二战”期间，这个岛屿还名叫“福尔摩沙”，并且被日本占领，美国参谋长联席会议提出了“堤道行动”，这是一项入侵计划，将为美国提供一个更靠近日本的基地，以便从那里发动攻击。道格拉斯·麦克阿瑟将军对入侵台湾提出反对，认为风险太大：这意味着要穿越一片有阻扰的海域，在复杂的地形上与一支防守严密的军队作战。军事规划人员表示，对该岛进行两栖攻击要比诺曼底登陆困难得多。

Few Army planners think the Chinese military is ready to undertake an amphibious assault of Taiwan.

没有多少陆军规划人员认为中国军方已做好对台湾发动两栖攻击的准备。

“The first thing you have to do is you have to generate an invasion force, which would be a pretty large force, to go onto an island which has a prepared defense,” Maj. Gen. Jeffrey A. VanAntwerp, the director of operations for the Army’s Pacific Command, said in an interview. “There’s 100 miles of Taiwan Straits that you have to get across, and you’re doing that in large transport vessels that are very vulnerable during that crossing.”

“你要做的第一件事就是组建一支入侵部队，这将是一支相当大的部队，还要登上一个做好了防御准备的岛屿，”陆军太平洋司令部作战主任杰弗里·范安特卫普少将在接受采访时说。“你必须穿越100英里长的台湾海峡，而且你要用大型运输船来做这件事，在穿越过程中，这些运输船非常容易受到攻击。”

China would most likely use light amphibious vessels to try to secure a beachhead in Taiwan, military planners say, but those vessels would have to plow through heavily mined waters. And while air assault forces would probably try to target infrastructure, in the end there is no viable way to seize an island as large as Taiwan, with its own defenses and 23 million people, without putting a force on the ground — troops who would have to come by sea.

军事规划人员说，中国最有可能的方案是使用轻型两栖舰艇来拿下一处在台湾的滩头阵地，但这些舰艇必须在布满水雷的水域中前进。尽管空袭部队可能会试图攻击基础设施，但归根结底，要夺取像台湾这样大面积、有着自己的防御系统和2300万人口的岛屿，是没有可行办法的，除非派出地面部队——而这些部队必须走海路。

“You can’t do it without pushing a large landing force across the straits on ships,” General VanAntwerp said. “There’s no other way.”

“如果不派遣一支大型登陆部队乘船过海峡，你就无法做到这一点，”范安特卫普说。“没有其他办法。”

So China is working on it. Chinese military planners have repurposed civilian ferries to transport troops and equipment across the strait and are working to construct floating piers, American officials say.

因此中国正在这方面想办法。美国官员说，中国军事规划人员已将民用渡轮改造成运送部队和装备过海峡的船只，并正在建造浮动码头。

The Pentagon would not go into detail about how American trainers are helping Taiwan build defenses. But making clear to the Chinese that an amphibious assault would be fraught is part of the U.S. military’s deterrence plan.

五角大楼不愿详细说明美国培训人员是如何帮助台湾建立防御系统的。但向中方明确表示两栖攻击将充满危险，是美国军方威慑计划的一部分。

Army officials also say they hope joint exercises with Pacific partners will show Chinese military officials all the capabilities that the United States has and can bring to bear.

陆军官员还表示，他们希望与太平洋伙伴的联合演习能向中国军方官员展示美国拥有以及能够发挥的所有能力。

The officials point out that more than a quarter of the service’s 450,000 active-duty troops are already tasked to the Pacific. But they define that region liberally, to encompass troops not only in Japan, South Korea and the Philippines but also in Alaska, Hawaii, Washington, Oregon and California. Taiwan is more than 6,000 miles from Joint Base Lewis-McChord near Tacoma, Wash., a separation the Army refers to as “the tyranny of distance.”

官员们指出，在美国陆军45万名现役军人中，有四分之一以上已被派往太平洋地区。但他们对该地区的定义比较宽泛，不仅包括日本、韩国和菲律宾的部队，还包括阿拉斯加、夏威夷、华盛顿州、俄勒冈州和加利福尼亚州的部队。台湾距离华盛顿州塔科马附近的刘易斯-麦克乔德联合基地超过6000英里，陆军将这种远离称为“距离的暴政”。

Docked in Pearl Harbor, the U.S. Army vessel Maj. Gen. Robert Smalls will be critical to getting all the apparatuses of the Army into the Pacific theater. The 300-foot-long ship, which recently arrived from Norfolk, Va., via the Panama Canal for the exercises, can beach itself, discharging 900 tons of vehicles and cargo — and, if necessary, troops — onto islands.

停靠在珍珠港的美国陆军“罗伯特·斯摩尔斯少将”号军舰对于将陆军所有装备运入太平洋战场至关重要。这艘300英尺长的军舰最近从弗吉尼亚州诺福克经巴拿马运河抵达珍珠港参加演习，它可以自行抢滩，将900吨车辆和货物——必要时还可以将部队——卸到岛屿上。

The Hawaii exercises, which ended in mid-October, were devised to replicate the conditions that troops can expect in a war with China. Gone were the desert-sand-colored fatigues that became de rigueur during the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. The troops in Hawaii wore jungle fatigues and face paint.

夏威夷演习于10月中旬结束，演习的目的是模拟部队在与中国交战时可能遇到的情况。在阿富汗和伊拉克战争期间要求穿着的沙色作战服已不复存在。在夏威夷的部队穿着丛林作战服，脸上涂着颜料。

Troops worked on new maneuvers patched together from watching Ukraine fight Russia. They dismantled and moved large and cumbersome command and control operations in 20 to 30 minutes, and communicated with one another without using Army satellites, so that an adversary would not be able to pick up their conversations.

通过观察乌克兰与俄罗斯的战斗，部队研究出了新的演习方法。他们在20到30分钟内拆卸和移动了庞大而笨重的指挥控制机构，并在不使用陆军卫星的情况下相互通信，这样对手就无法窃听到他们的对话。

Learning how to advance in small teams that can attack and then dissipate into thin air was key. The Army sent to the troops 96 new rainforest-green infantry squad vehicles that can quickly move up to nine soldiers each through jungle terrain.

关键是要学会如何以小分队的形式前进，小分队可以发起攻击，然后销声匿迹。陆军向部队提供了96辆新型丛林迷彩步兵班用车辆，每辆车可载着多达九名士兵在丛林地形中快速移动。

士兵们在移动作战中心工作，伪装让这座中心完全融入到了深绿色的森林中。此次夏威夷演习的目的是模拟美军在与中国交战时可能遇到的情况。陆军向部队派发了96辆新型丛林迷彩步兵班用车辆，每辆车可快速运送最多九名士兵穿越丛林地形。

“It is so powerful to be able to send a company’s worth of personnel, which is about 130 people, on those vehicles, along multiple routes, and then at a point bring them together to attack the enemy, and then disappear in different directions,” said Maj. Gen. Marcus Evans, the 25th Infantry Division’s commander.

第25步兵师师长马库斯·埃文斯少将说：“能够将一个连约130名人员派上这些车辆，沿多条路线行进，然后在某一时刻将他们集中起来攻击敌人，最后消失在不同的方向，这实在是太强大了。”

‘Pull Your Reserve’

 “拉开副伞”

The first of the 864 Army parachuters who took off from Alaska began appearing in the skies above the three volcanic mountains just after sunrise on Oct. 7.

10月7号日出后，第一批从阿拉斯加起飞的864名伞兵开始出现在三座火山的上空。

From the ground, the sight could easily pass for an Army airborne commercial, as waves of jumpers shot out of the side of the C-17s and floated to earth, their chutes billowing. All of the soldiers were supposed to be equipped with two chutes, including a reserve if their primary chute did not deploy within four seconds after they jumped out of the plane.

从地面上看，这一幕很容易让人联想到陆军空降兵广告，一波波伞兵从C-17飞机的一侧跳出，飘向地面，伞在空中张开。所有士兵都应该配备了两个降落伞，包括一个备用降落伞，以防跳伞后主伞在四秒内没有展开。

Around 7:35 a.m., Lt. Col. Tim Alvarado, the commander of the garrison at the Pohakuloa Training Area, peered into the sun as the next C-17 approached.

上午7时35分左右，波哈库洛亚训练区驻军指挥官蒂姆·阿尔瓦拉多中校在下一架C-17飞机靠近时向太阳望去。

“The paratroopers should be standing at this point; they would have gotten the 10-minute warning,” he said, narrating the jump for me. “The jump master is looking out, making sure there are no obstructions as the parachuters are getting ready to jump out.”

“伞兵们此时应该已经站好，他们应该已经收到了倒数10分钟提醒，”他为我讲述了跳伞过程。“在伞兵准备跳伞时，跳伞指挥向外张望，确保没有障碍物。”

The C-17 roared overhead, and the jumpers started appearing like closed umbrellas that whooshed open in the sky as their chutes expanded. “Some of them get twisted up so they have to unwind their ropes so they don’t land awkwardly,” Colonel Alvarado continued.

C-17飞机在头顶轰鸣，一开始，伞兵看起来像是一把把已经合拢的雨伞，随着降落伞的扩张，在空中嗖嗖地张开。阿尔瓦拉多接着说：“有些人被缠住了，所以他们必须解开绳索，以免以别扭的方式着陆。”

士兵们学习在丛林地形中进行垂降。部队模拟运送一名受伤士兵。在阿富汗和伊拉克战争期间要求穿着的沙色作战服已不复存在。夏威夷的部队穿着丛林服，脸上涂着颜料。

Then, surveying the scene, he said, “That’s not right.”

然后，他看了看空中，说：“不对劲。”

Before us, what looked like a cigarette in the sky was falling in the midst of the canopy of ballooned parachutes. Above the jumper, Private Partida, air moved through his chute, creating a wiggly line. But the air did not inflate the chute.

在我们面前，一根像香烟一样的东西正在降落伞飘扬的天空中坠落。在伞兵二等兵帕蒂达的头顶上，空气穿过他的降落伞，形成一条摇摆的线。但降落伞没有张开。

“Pull your reserve,” Colonel Alvarado said quietly.

“拉开副伞，”阿尔瓦拉多小声说。

The reserve never deployed. Private Partida disappeared from view beneath a berm as he hit the ground.

副伞始终没有打开。帕蒂达触地后消失在一道护堤里。

Capt. Kaleigh Mullen, an Army doctor, started running. Medics stationed throughout the drop zone were doing the same.

军医凯莱·穆伦上尉开始跑起来。分布在整个空投区各处的医护人员也在跑。

Members of the Private Partida’s unit got to him first. He was calm and conscious, but his spine was damaged. Captain Mullen arrived, panting from her seven-minute sprint. She and Maj. Mitch Marks, an Army physician assistant, propped up his neck and spine to make sure he did not suffer any additional damage.

帕蒂达所在部队的成员首先来到他身边。他很镇定，意识清醒，但脊椎受损。跑了七分钟的穆伦赶到时气喘吁吁。她和陆军助理医师米奇·马克斯少校一起支撑起他的颈部和脊柱，以确保他不会受到更多损伤。

“OK, so he was very talkative, and he was able to say that he didn’t have any pain,” Captain Mullen told me later. She took his first set of vitals at 7:45 a.m., and by 8:20 the Black Hawk medevac helicopter was in flight, on its way to the hospital.

穆伦后来告诉我：“他说了很多话，他能说他没感觉有任何疼痛。”她在早上7时45分为他测量了第一组生命体征，8时20分，“黑鹰”医疗后送直升机已在飞往医院的途中。

A statement released a day later provided few details. “An 11th Airborne Division soldier was injured in a training incident in Hawaii today,” it said. The release made no mention of the unopened chute or the reserve.

一天后发布的声明没有提供多少细节。声明写道：“一名第11空降师士兵今天在夏威夷的一次训练中受伤。”声明没有提及未打开的降落伞或副伞。

Nor did it mention that doctors later fused Private Partida’s vertebrae in multiple surgeries. Whether he will be able to walk again is not known.

报道中也没有提到医生后来通过多次手术接上了帕蒂达的椎骨。目前还不清楚他是否能再次行走。

Instead, the statement ended with a description of the purpose of the exercises, which included preparing paratroopers for “decisive action operations in the U.S. Army Pacific area of responsibility.”

声明最后介绍了演习的目的，包括让伞兵为“陆军太平洋责任区的决定性行动”做好准备。