 It’s often said that Australia faces “the most challengingstrategic environment since the Second World War” but the government’s approachto national security decision making has not developed much in the time since. 人们常说，澳大利亚面临着“自第二次世界大战以来最具挑战性的战略环境”，但自那以后，政府的国家安全决策方式并没有太大发展。 It’s true that more structure has been brought to cabinetprocesses. In 1996, the prime minister John Howard established the NationalSecurity Committee of Cabinet (NSC) and subsidiary bodies, which essentiallyendure to this day. But it’s open to question how much actual decision makinghas been affected. 的确，内阁流程有了更多的机构。1996年，约翰·霍华德总理成立了内阁级国家安全委员会及其附属机构，这些机构基本上延续至今。但是实际决策受到了多大的影响还有待商榷。 The cabinet decision, made on 18 March 2003, to join theUS-led 2003 invasion of Iraq was based only on “oral reports by the primeminister”. There was no National Assessment prepared by intelligence agenciesand no Cabinet Submission. Then DFAT secretary Ashton Calvert reportedlyrebuked a colleague who queried these absences by telling him: “What do youthink we are running here? A f—-ing debating society?” So, although morerelevant cabinet documents have been belatedly transferred to the National Archivesfollowing an incomplete release after 20 years in January this year, it isunlikely that they will reveal much. 2003年3月18日，内阁决定加入美国领导的伊拉克战争，这仅仅是基于“总理的口头报告”。情报机构没有发布国家评估报告，内阁也没有提交报告。据报道，外交部阿什顿·卡尔弗特斥责了一位质疑这些文件缺席的同事，告诉他：“你认为我们在这里运行什么？一个该死的辩论社团？”因此，尽管更多相关的内阁文件在20年后于2024年1月不完整发布后被迟来地转移到国家档案馆，但它们不太可能透露太多信息。 What we know of Iraq decision making accords with a politicalculture that is comfortable with unstructured decision making. Politicalleaders are experienced intuitive decision makers. Getting a sense of the roomis less onerous than articulating and weighing the multiple factors that gointo any complex decision. 我们所知道的有关加入伊拉克战争的决策符合一种政治文化——乐于接受无组织的决策。政治领导人是经验丰富的直觉决策者。决策者的自觉比阐明和权衡任何复杂决策中的多种因素要简单得多。 But unstructured group decision making is susceptible tonumerous flaws, especially cognitive biases such as groupthink. Howard’sreflections on his 1999 decision to commit to Australian forces to East Timor(on which the records are also silent) shows awareness of these risks. Howardnoted that once he’d made up his mind very few of his cabinet colleagues werelikely to disagree. But his defence of the of the Iraq decision rest mostly onmutually-reinforcing affirmations from other members of cabinet’s nationalsecurity committee. 但是非机制化的群体决策容易受到许多缺陷的影响，特别是认知偏差，如群体思维。霍华德对他1999年决定向东帝汶派遣澳大利亚军队的反思（对此也没有记录）表明了对这些风险的认识。霍华德指出，一旦他下定决心，他的内阁同事中很少有人会不同意。但是他对伊拉克决定的辩护主要依赖于内阁国家安全委员会其他成员相互加强的肯定。 历史学家和专栏作家詹姆斯·柯伦认为，对伊拉克决定的调查有助于让澳大利亚应对未来的危机，这是正确的。但是澳大利亚在伊拉克问题上的决定是否正确几乎无关紧要。糟糕的过程仍然可以产生正确的决策。但是完善的过程显然不太可能产生错误的决策。因此，任何调查都应该关注过程而不是结果。 What sort of crisis? The question of whether (and how)Australia would join a US war with China understandably gets a lot ofattention. But growing geopolitical competition short of war will presentCanberra with many tough choices that have to be made with limited time andinformation. The unpredictable interplay of geopolitics with a widening arrayof transnational issues – from climate change to new mutations of politicalextremism – will only add to this complexity. 今后澳大利亚会遭遇什么样的危机？澳大利亚是否（以及如何）加入对美国与中国未来的冲突的问题引起了很多关注，这是可以理解的。但除了战争之外，日益激烈的地缘政治竞争将给堪培拉带来许多艰难的选择，这些选择必须在有限的时间和信息下做出。地缘政治与越来越多的跨国问题——从气候变化到政治极端主义的新变种——的不可预测的相互作用只会增加这种复杂性。 Australia could learn more about how to make these sorts ofdecision by expanding and building on the Covid-19 Response Inquiry. Thepandemic – including its knock-on effects on geopolitics and economics – was aBlack Swan event. The varying responses of governments, in Australia andinternationally, provides a rare opportunity to compare how differentreal-world decision makers perceived and responded to the same crisis. ButAustralia’s inquiry will, unfortunately, not look into “actions taken unilaterallyby state and territory governments”. 澳大利亚可以通过扩大和制定“新冠肺炎应对调查”来了解如何做出这类决定。疫情——包括其对地缘政治和经济的连锁影响——是“黑天鹅”事件。澳大利亚和国际上政府的不同反应提供了一个难得的机会来比较的现实世界不同决策者如何看待和应对同一危机。 人工智能和认知心理学的快速发展正在改变我们对决策的理解。计算机能够可靠地做出比人类更好决策的领域正在不断扩大。与此同时，随着我们易受影响的认知偏见越来越多，人类决策中的缺陷变得越来越明显。有理由假设，随着时间的推移，澳大利亚的竞争对手将更多地利用这些知识，因为他们寻求操纵澳大利亚的决策，就像私营公司已经利用技术操纵大多数消费者的日常选择一样。 For all these reasons, the old model of government decisionmaking is no longer good enough. Political leaders remain, however, unlikely towelcome the imposition of more structure, which many would see as impedingtheir freedom to exercise political judgement. There is deep reluctance to showhow the sausage is made. But policy areas that are more technical or apoliticalmay be more amenable to grater structure. 出于所有这些原因，旧的政府决策模式已经不再完善。然而，政治领导人仍然不太可能欢迎强加更多的决策机制，许多人认为这阻碍了他们行使政治判断的自由。 National security bipartisanship is more of an aspirationthan a description. The 2003 Iraq decision was opposed by the Labor opposition.Even when disagreements are minor politicians will instrumentalise them if theydeem it necessary. But major disagreements on substance are relatively rare andthe current government has sought to minimise them. 国家安全中的两党合作更多的是一种愿望，而不是一种描述。2003年伊拉克的决定遭到了反对党工党的反对。即使分歧很小，政客们也会利用它们。 Canberra should commit to more rigorous national securitydecision making procedures. This could improve a range of decisions, fromslow-moving defence procurement through to rapid crisis response. Theseprocedures should be informed by lessons learnt from history and science. Amajor goal should be to seek multiple intermediate assessments and betterintegrate competing perspectives. New processes could range from establishingan Advisory National Security Council through to simply adopting the principlesof decision hygiene. 堪培拉应该致力于更严格的国家安全决策程序。这可能会改善一系列决策，从进展缓慢的国防采购到快速的危机应对。这些程序应从历史和科学中吸取的经验教训。主要目标应该是进行多个中立的评估，并更好地整合相互竞争的观点。新的决策程序可以从建立一个咨询性的国家安全委员会开始。（完）白云的故乡编译 （免责声明：本译文观点仅代表作者本人，不代表本公众号的任何立场，译文仅供研究使用。） |
