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Science and technology
科學技術
The science of civil war
內戰科技
What makes heroic strife
英勇斗爭緣何而致
Computer models that can predict the outbreak and spread of civil conflict are being developed
可以預測內戰的爆發和蔓延的計算機模型正在被開發出來。
FOR the past decade or so, generals commanding the world's most advanced armies have been able to rely on accurate forecasts of the outcomes of conventional battles.
在過去的十年中，對世界上最先進的軍隊的指揮依賴于對傳統戰爭爆發的精確預測。
Given data on weather and terrain, and the combatants' numbers, weaponry, positions, training and level of morale, computer programs such as the Tactical Numerical Deterministic Model, designed by the Dupuy Institute in Washington, DC, can predict who will win, how quickly and with how many casualties.
只要有關于氣候和土地的數據信息，敵人的數目，武器，位置，訓練以及道德水平，計算機程序，比如華盛頓Dupuy研究所設計的戰術數值確定模型，可以預測哪一方會贏得戰爭，需要多少時間，以及會有多少人員傷亡。
Guerrilla warfare, however, is harder to model than open battle of this sort, and the civil insurrection that often precedes it is harder still.
然而，游擊戰爭是很難模擬的，在此之前的暴動也同樣難模擬，
Which, from the generals' point of view, is a pity, because such conflict is the dominant form of strife these days.
很不幸，從普遍觀點看來，最近一段時候這類戰爭沖突占了大部分。
The reason for the difficulty is that the fuel of popular uprisings is not hardware, but social factors of a type that computer programmers find it difficult to capture in their algorithms.
預測困難的原因是激起暴動的因素并非硬性條件，而是一種社會因素，而這種社會因素是計算機程序很難計算的。
Analysing the emotional temperature of postings on Facebook and Twitter, or the telephone traffic between groups of villages, is always going to be a harder task than analysing physics-based data like a tank's firing range or an army's stocks of ammunition and fuel.
分析facebook和微博上更新的情緒，或是分析村落之間的電話往來，總是一項比分析實實在在的數據，比如說一臺坦克的射程或者一支軍隊的軍火和燃料儲備，要難得多的任務。
Harder, but not impossible.
很難，并不表示不可能。
For in the war-games rooms and think-tanks of the rich world's military powers, bright minds are working on the problem of how to model insurrection and irregular warfare.
對于富人世界的軍事力量的戰爭模擬室和智囊團而言，正有智慧的大腦在解決這些問題，如何模擬暴動和非常規戰爭。
Slowly but surely they are succeeding, and in the process they are helping politicians and armies to a better understanding of the nature of rebellion.
雖然很緩慢，但是可以確認他們正走向成功。在此過程中，他們幫助政治家們和軍隊更好地理解叛亂的本質。
SCARE tactics
SCARE戰術
One of the best-known projects in this field is SCARE, the Spatio-Cultural Abductive Reasoning Engine, developed at the United States Military Academy at West Point by a team led by Major Paulo Shakarian, a computer-scientist-turned-soldier.
本領域中最有名的項目之一是SCARE，全稱為空間文化推導儀，是由設立在西點軍校的美國軍事科學院的Paulo Shakarian少校所領導的團隊開發的。
SCARE operates at the most militarily conventional end of the irregular-conflict spectrum: the point where an army of guerrillas is already in being and is making life hard for a notionally better-armed army of regular troops.
Paulo Shakarian少校是一名軍事計算機科學家。SCARE在非常規的戰爭沖突中軍事圖譜上看來傳統的結束時分運作，即游擊隊已經到來，讓我們觀念中裝備精良的正規軍陷入困境之時運作。
That, of course, has been the experience of American forces in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.
顯然，那就是美軍在越南，伊拉克和阿富汗的經歷。
Major Shakarian and his team have analysed the behaviour of guerrillas in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and think they understand it well enough to build reliable models.
Shakarian少校和他的團隊分析了伊拉克和阿富汗游擊隊的行為方式，并且認為他們已經足夠了解他們的行為方式，可以建立可靠的模型。
Their crucial insight is the local nature of conflict in these countries.
至關重要的是，他們深刻洞察了這些國家沖突的地區本質特性。
In particular, bombs directed at occupying forces are generally planted close to the place where they were made, and on the territory of the bombmaker's tribal kin or co-religionists.
特別地來說，占領軍的炸彈通常安裝在離制造地很近的地方，就在炸彈制造者族親或同教派人員的地盤上。
That is not a surprise, of course. Kin and co-religionists are the most reliable allies in wars where different guerrilla groups may not always see eye to eye about objectives, beyond the immediate one of driving out foreign troops.
這當然不足為奇。親屬和同教派是不同游擊隊出沒的戰爭中最為可靠的同盟。這些游擊隊除了立刻趕走外國軍隊以外，可能無法總是有統一的目標。
But it does give Major Shakarian and his team a convenient way in.
這給了Shakarian少校和他的團隊一個方便的切入口。
Using the co-ordinates of previously bombed sites, data from topographical and street maps, and information on an area's ethnic, linguistic and confessional human terrain, SCARE is able to predict where guerrillas' munition dumps will be to within about 700 metres.
利用以前的炸彈安裝地的坐標，來自地理和街道地圖的信息數據，以及當地民族的信息，語言，和人類地域的自白，SCARE能夠在大約700米內預測出游擊隊的軍需存放處。
That is not perfect, but it is close enough to be able to focus a search in a useful way.
那并非完美，但是已經足夠接近有效地集中搜索了。
Moreover, SCARE's focus should soon become more precise.
此外， SCARE的焦點很快會更加精準。
Major Shakarian's latest trick is to include data on phone-traffic patterns in the calculations.
Shakarian少校最新的計劃將包括計算電話通路的模式。
An upgraded version of the program, employing this trick, will be created next month.
本計劃的升級版將會使用這項策略，未來的幾個月就將實現。
All of which is useful for dealing with a conflict once it has started.
一旦開始，所有的這一切都有利于處理沖突。
But it is better, if possible, to see what may happen before things get going.
然而，如果可能的話，最好看到在事情繼續以前，有什么可能會發生。
And for that, America's navy has a project called RiftLand.
為此，美國海軍，有一個項目名為分裂的土地。
RiftLand is being developed on the navy's behalf by Claudio Cioffi-Revilla, a professor of computational social science at George Mason University in Virginia.
分裂的土地是由維吉尼亞的喬治梅森大學的計算社會科學教授Claudio Cioffi-Revilla為代表開發的。
It is specific to the part of East Africa around the Great Rift Valley.
它尤其針對東非地區大裂谷一帶。這也是它名稱的由來。
That this area includes Congo, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Somalia and Uganda, each of which has been the scene of present or recent civil strife, is no coincidence.
這一地區包括剛果，埃塞俄比亞，路萬達，索馬里，和烏干達，每一個國家目前或者最近都經歷了內戰，這并非偶然。
But the ideas involved could be generalised to other parts of the world, with due alteration for local conditions.
然而，這個說法經過根據當地條件的少許變動，也可以推及世界其他地區，
Broadly, RiftLand works by chewing its way through a range of data collected by charities, academics and government agencies, and uses these to predict where groups of people will go and with whom they may clash in times of drought or armed conflict.
廣義上來說，分裂的土地通過精細分析由慈善組織，學術機構和政府收集來的數據，由此來預測哪一伙人會行動，又會跟誰發生武裝沖突。
Dr Cioffi-Revilla gives the example of a tribe of nomadic herders known for sharing its notions of veterinary medicine with others.
Cioffi-Revilla博士以一個對外出口獸醫藥品的游牧部落舉了一個例子。
This tribe, the model predicts, will reckon it safer to cross the lands of groups who also rely on keeping their animals healthy.
模型預測，這個部落將會估計它將安全地穿過那些依賴于動物健康的群落的土地，
Another point is that tribes who own a radio or mobile phone will steer clear of roads after news reports of government atrocities against their kin.
另外一個觀點是那些擁有收音機或者手機的群落在新聞中說政府對他們的親屬施暴以后會避開大路。
A third is that much of the movement of herdsmen can be predicted from satellite data on the condition of pasture lands, modified by knowledge of what Dr Cioffi-Revilla calls the complex network of IOUs between tribes: which are currently hostile to one another, and who owes whom favours.
還有一個是牧者們的行動可以由衛星根據草原的狀況預測出來，再加上這些部落之間Cioffi-Revilla博士稱之為復雜的借貸關系網的觀點。他們，目前彼此敵對，也彼此相欠。
Hostile sentiments
敵對情緒
The sort of conflict dealt with by RiftLand—a war of all against all in countries where central government is light or non-existent—has been particularly characteristic of this part of Africa in recent years.
這類由分裂的土地處理的戰爭沖突，也是在那些中央政府弱勢或者無政府的國家出現的一種混戰，已經成為非洲這一局部地區近年來戰爭的特點。
Further north, where states are stronger, urban insurrection of the sort seen at the beginning of the Arab spring is a more common threat.
再往北，那些國家政府相對強勢，這種城鎮叛亂在阿拉伯的春天之初是比較常見的威脅。
Politicians faced with such uprisings may thus be interested in yet another piece of software, known as Condor, which has been developed by Peter Gloor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
政治家們面臨著，這些暴亂勢力可能對另一個軟件叫做禿鷹感興趣。它是由麻省理工的Peter Gloor開發的。
Dr Gloor is certainly not in the business of saving the jobs of Middle-Eastern dictators. He is actually a consultant to the Christian Democratic Union, Germany's largest political party.
Gloor博士絕不是要為中東的獨裁者們保住工作。事實上他是德國最大政黨基督教民主聯盟的顧問。
But all politicians in power, whether democrats or dictators, share a distaste for demonstrations and protests on the streets.
不過所有當權的政治家們，無論是民主主義者還是獨裁者，都不會喜歡大街上的示威抗議活動。
Condor works by sifting through data from Twitter, Facebook and other social media, and using them to predict how a public protest will evolve.
禿鷹篩選來自微博，facebook和其他社會媒體的數據信息，利用他們預測公眾抗議將如何發展。
It does so by performing what Dr Gloor calls sentiment analysis on the data.
禿鷹是通過對信息進行Gloor博士所說的情緒分析做到這一點的。
Sentiment analysis first classifies protesters by their clout.
情緒分析首先將抗議者們根據他們的影響力分類，
An influential Twitter user, for instance, is one who has many followers but follows few people himself.
比如說，一位具有影響力的微博用戶擁有很多粉絲，但是他自己卻只關注極少數人。他的發言往往是歡快的，包含著太好了，真有趣，太有趣了，真開心，有趣的電影，你會喜歡的等等諸如此類的詞語或短語。
His tweets are typically upbeat, are rapidly retweeted, and appear to sway others.
這些微博很快會贏得回復，明顯影響其他人。
In a nod to the methods developed by Google, Dr Gloor refers to this process as PageRanking for people.
為了和谷歌開發的技術相匹配，Gloor博士將這一過程稱為人物網頁等級搜索。
Having thus ranked protesters, Condor then follows those at the top of the list to see how their output changes.
有了這些分級的抗議者，禿鷹接下來會關注表單上排位最高的幾位，看他們的發言如何變化。
Dr Gloor has found that, in Western countries at least, non-violent protest movements begin to burn out when the upbeat tweets turn negative, with not, never, lame, I hate, idiot and so on becoming more frequent.
Gloor博士發現，至少在西方國家，當歡快的發言變得消極， 不，從不，蹩腳的，我討厭，傻瓜等頻繁出現的時候，非暴力的抗議行動就開始爆發了。
Abundant complaints about idiots in the government or in an ideologically opposed group are a good signal of a movement's decline.
大量對政府的傻瓜們或者假想敵團體的抱怨的出現都是行動落幕的標志。
Complaints about idiots in one's own movement or such infelicities as the theft of beer by a fellow demonstrator suggest the whole thing is almost over.
對自身行動中傻瓜們的抱怨或者其他示威者遭遇的偷竊啤酒的不幸標志著整個事情幾乎快結束了。
Condor, then, is good at forecasting the course of existing protests.
然后禿鷹擅長預測剩下的抗議者的行動。
Even better, from the politicians' point of view, would be to predict such protests before they occur. Not surprisingly, several groups of researchers are trying to do this too.
從政治家的觀點看來，最好能在抗議活動爆發之前就能做出預測。不足為奇，有很多研究小組也在嘗試這么做。
Aptima, a firm based in Woburn, Massachusetts, is one.
Aptima，在馬薩諸塞州沃本市的一家公司就是其中之一。
Its program, called E-MEME uses sentiment analysis to see how opinions and states of mind flow across entire populations, not just activists.
它的項目叫做E-MEME利用情緒分析法來看觀點和說明是如何再人群中蔓延的，而不僅僅是在活躍分子中。
It employs data from online news sources, blogs and Twitter, and attempts to rank the susceptibility of certain parts of the populace to specific ideas.
它利用來自在線新聞，博客，微博的信息數據，嘗試將這一部分民眾對特殊觀點的敏感度進行排位。
According to Robert McCormack, the project's chief technologist, E-MEME can determine things as different as which places in Egypt contain people who will care a lot about a border incident with Israel, and which parts of a country most need water in times of drought.
據本項目的主要技術負責人Robert McCormack所說，E-MEME能夠判定埃及哪些地方的某一群人對和以色列邊境沖突比較關心，哪些地方在干旱時特別需要水，這些不同之處。
The Worldwide Integrated Crisis Early Warning System project, led by Lockheed Martin, a large American defence contractor, goes even further.
全球危機預警系統，是由美國最大的國防承包商Lockheed Martin所主持開發的，這個項目是做得更好。
According to Lieutenant-Colonel Melinda Morgan of the office of the secretary of defence, in Washington, who is the government's liaison officer for the project, it can crunch great quantities of data from digital news media, blogs and other websites, and also intelligence and diplomatic reports.
據在華盛頓國防部秘書辦公室人員，同時也是本項目的政府聯絡官員的Melinda Morgan中校稱，本項目能夠詳細分析來自數字新聞媒體，博客，和其他網頁，以及情報部門和外交部門報告的大量信息數據，
It then uses all this to forecast—months in advance—riots, rebellions, coups, economic crises, government crackdowns and international wars.
然后利用這一切提前數月對暴動，叛亂，政變，經濟危機，政府倒臺，國際戰爭來進行預測。
Colonel Morgan calls this process social radar.
中校Morgan稱之為社會雷達。
Conflict forecasters are even joining the open-source bandwagon, in an attempt to improve their software.
為了改進軟件，戰爭預警系統甚至還加入了開放信息的潮流。
Last August IARPA, an American-government technology-development agency for the intelligence services, started the Open Source Indicators programme.
去年八月，一家提供情報服務的美國政府科技發展公司IARPA啟動了開放信息指示儀項目。
This finances developers of software that can beat the news: forecasting political crises and mass violence in a reliable way.
此項計劃將會為那些可以擊敗新聞的軟件開發者們提供資助，這些軟件將以一種可靠的方式預測政治危機和大規模暴亂。
The programme's manager, Jason Matheny, is now considering the proposals that have come in so far.
本項目的負責人Jason Matheny目前正考慮提出迄今已有的方案，范圍包括從跟蹤維基百科更新到用馬路監控器監控交通。
These range from tracking Wikipedia edits to monitoring traffic with roadside cameras. The only proposals Mr Matheny will not consider are those designed to forecast conflict in America itself, and those that rely on monitoring particular individuals, whether in America or elsewhere.
Matheny先生唯一沒有考慮的是用那些設計來預測美國本身的戰爭沖突的裝置，也沒有將那些監視特別的人的裝置考慮在內，無論是否在美國境內。
Guerrillas in the midst
中部游擊戰
Rather than just foretelling the future, however, the best technology should concentrate on shaping it.
然而，最好的技術應當專注于創造未來，而不僅僅是預測未來。
W-ICEWS offers a bit of that.
W-ICEWS就可以提供一些這方面的服務。
It has a what if capability, which allows users to change the inputs and see how things might develop differently given different events in the real world.
它有著如果的功能，允許使用者改變輸入信息，來看看如果在真實的世界中出現了不同的事件的話，事情可能如何發展。
But Venkatramana Subrahmanian of the University of Maryland proposes something more specific.
然而馬里蘭大學的Venkatramana Subrahmanian提出了一些更加具體的建議。
The Temporal-Probabilistic Rule System, a program his team has developed using $600,000 of American-army money, looks at 770 social and political indicators and uses them to predict attacks by Lashkar-e-Taiba, a guerrilla group based in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
他的團隊花費了美國軍方600,000美元開發的時間概率定律系統，關注770個社會和政治指示儀，并且利用他們預測巴基斯坦統治下總部在喀什米爾的一個游擊隊組織拉什卡-塔伊巴組織的攻擊計劃。
If it works, this process might be applied, using a different set of indicators, to other groups of rebels.
如果可行話，這項程序將利用另一組指示儀，應用于其他反政府組織。
The crucial point about Dr Subrahmanian's model is that it not only predicts attacks, it also suggests how they might be countered.
Subrahmanian博士的模型最為關鍵的一點是他不僅僅對攻擊進行預測，還將就這些侵略可能會如何被反擊給出建議。
Dr Subrahmanian is understandably cagey about the details, but he does give one example:
可以理解Subrahmanian博士對細節的透露小心謹慎，不過他還是舉了一例子：
if an attack requires complex co-ordination between group members, the software might recommend stoking paranoia by forging false communications between them.
如果一場攻擊戰要求組織成員復雜的合作，此軟件可能建議通過在他們之間捏造虛假交流通訊來造成猜疑并煽風點火。
On April 2nd President Barack Obama announced a $10m bounty on Lashkar-e-Taiba's leader, Hafiz Saeed.
4月2日，巴拉克奧巴馬總統宣布懸賞一千萬美金抓捕拉什卡-塔伊巴組織頭子Hafiz Saeed。
It would indeed mark the coming of age of civil-strife software if that bounty, or another like it, were one day claimed on behalf of a group of programmers half a world away.
如果有一天，這項懸賞，或者另一個類似的賞金，被地球的另一邊的一群程序員領取，這將標志著內戰軟件時代的到來。
