本文为原文前 6,000 字符的节选翻译，完整内容请查看原文。

Elon Musk Just Gave Europe a Reason to Replace American Technology

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

请输入您的电子邮件地址以订阅此博客，并通过电子邮件接收新文章的通知。

I’ve been in London for the last month and have heard policymakers react to the wake up call Elon Musk just delivered.

过去一个月我一直待在伦敦，听到了政策制定者们对埃隆·马斯克刚刚带来的警示所作出的反应。

The decision of the U.S. to shut off intelligence and throttle the military version of Starlink called Starshield to Ukraine may have been a blip in the news in the US, but it has sent tremors across Europe.

美国决定切断情报并限制乌克兰使用星链的军事版本“星盾”（Starshield），这在美国新闻中可能只是一个小插曲，但却在整个欧洲引起了震动。

For years doomsayers in the UK and Europe were worried about the U.S. having a kill switch in weapon systems and critical commercial technology that could disconnect them at will. Most people, including me, thought that it was a paranoid fantasy.

多年来，英国和欧洲的悲观主义者一直担心美国在武器系统和关键商业技术中设有“终止开关”，可以随意切断连接。大多数人，包括我在内，都认为这是一种偏执的幻想。

Until it happened. Seemingly on a whim of a single individual, (according to the Wall Street Journal) Elon Musk personally ordered the restrictions, and the effect was to tilt Russia’s war against Ukraine in favor of the Russians. This wasn’t an articulated U.S. foreign policy nor was it an announced act of the U.S. government. From news accounts it appears to have been a personal decision of an American CEO acting unilaterally.

直到它真的发生了。据《华尔街日报》报道，埃隆·马斯克似乎仅凭个人一时兴起，亲自下令实施了这些限制，其结果是使俄罗斯对乌克兰的战争向有利于俄罗斯的方向倾斜。这既不是明确的美国外交政策，也不是美国政府宣布的行动。从新闻报道来看，这似乎是一位美国首席执行官单方面做出的个人决定。

Blowback For whatever reason, whether it was to satisfy a request from the White House or some personal animosity to the Ukrainians, from Europe’s perspective, that’s almost beside the point. An American company operating critical military infrastructure was able to degrade the capability of an American partner in the middle of a war. Without warning.

反噬 无论出于何种原因，是为了满足白宫的要求，还是出于对乌克兰人的某种个人敌意，从欧洲的角度来看，这几乎无关紧要。一家运营关键军事基础设施的美国公司，竟然能够在战争期间削弱美国合作伙伴的能力，而且事先没有任何警告。

The message heard loud and clear here in Europe was that the U.S. is an unreliable security and technology partner willing to throw any partner under the bus, at any time, for any reason.

在欧洲，人们清楚地听到了这样一个信息：美国是一个不可靠的安全和技术合作伙伴，随时可能因任何原因将任何伙伴抛弃。

The conversations I’ve heard have included, “what happens if other U.S. CEOs – Microsoft, OpenAI or Anthropic, Oracle, Palantir, or Google – decide to restrict/limit or deny access to their products? What capabilities would Europe lose if enterprise software and/or AI across Europe goes dark?” This was a laughable scenario until this week. To a lot of European decision makers, it is no longer outside the realm of possibility.

我听到的对话包括：“如果其他美国首席执行官——比如微软、OpenAI、Anthropic、甲骨文、Palantir 或谷歌——决定限制或拒绝提供其产品，会发生什么？如果整个欧洲的企业软件和/或人工智能瘫痪，欧洲将失去哪些能力？”直到本周，这还是一个可笑的假设。但对许多欧洲决策者来说，这已不再是不可能发生的事情。

The lesson that was brought home was that no nation, Europe or elsewhere, can continue to outsource its national sovereignty and security by depending solely on US data systems or intelligence.

由此得出的教训是，任何国家，无论是欧洲还是其他地区，都不能再通过完全依赖美国的数据系统或情报来外包其国家主权和安全。

Unintended Consequences Besides the political ramifications, the business ones are going to come home to roost. If every U.S. vendor is now a kill-switch risk, the allied market for that whole ecosystem shrinks. As it sinks into the European countries that the U.S, can simply shut off any technology, over time they will find and build alternatives. In the years ahead, this may cost American companies tens if not hundreds of billions of lost revenue.

意想不到的后果 除了政治影响外，商业影响也将显现。如果每个美国供应商现在都存在“终止开关”风险，那么整个生态系统的盟友市场就会萎缩。随着欧洲国家意识到美国可以随意切断任何技术，他们终将寻找并建立替代方案。在未来几年，这可能会让美国公司损失数百亿甚至数千亿美元的收入。

Europe has been debating digital sovereignty for years. Up to this year, the idea of cloning the capabilities of the best U.S. products seemed like an insurmountable problem. And some, like low-cost access to space, still are. But today AI collapses the cost of creating sovereign software at exactly the time that geopolitical risk is increasing customers’ willingness to switch. AI makes recreating the features, functions and compatibility of Microsoft Office, Oracle, Salesforce, Palantir, Anduril, et al. within reach. AI puts it well within the capabilities of most nations.

欧洲多年来一直在讨论数字主权。直到今年，克隆美国顶尖产品能力的想法似乎还是一个无法逾越的难题。其中一些，比如低成本进入太空，依然如此。但今天，人工智能降低了创建主权软件的成本，而地缘政治风险恰好增加了客户更换供应商的意愿。人工智能使得重现微软 Office、甲骨文、Salesforce、Palantir、Anduril 等产品的特性、功能和兼容性变得触手可及。人工智能让大多数国家完全有能力做到这一点。

The U.S. spent decades establishing itself as the world’s indispensable technology supplier. A substantial part of that advantage depended on customers believing American technology would remain reliable and available.

美国花费了数十年时间将自己确立为世界不可或缺的技术供应商。这一优势的很大一部分取决于客户相信美国技术将保持可靠和可用。

Going forward a U.S. founder selling into European defense or government now needs an answer to “who holds the switch” before the first meeting; and European founders just got sovereignty as a sellable feature.

展望未来，向欧洲国防或政府部门销售产品的美国创始人，现在在第一次会议前就需要回答“谁掌握开关”的问题；而欧洲的创始人则刚刚获得了一个可销售的卖点——主权。

What was done in a fit of pique will cost the U.S. both leadership and jobs.

这种一时意气用事的行为将使美国付出失去领导地位和就业机会的代价。

Filed under: National Security, Teaching |

归档于：国家安全，教学 |

The warning you have presented is unquestionably, of considerable concern. Furthermore, the emergence of Data Centres throughout Europe adds to those concerns. There is one caveat however, which I would like to add for your esteemed consideration. It was Russia, in my opinion, which “unilaterally” and “directly advised” Mr. Musk to “shut off and throttle” his Starshield system. Russia has the capacity to disrupt the entire Starlink system including the Military variant and I believe, reminded Mr. Musk of its ability to do so.

你提出的警告无疑令人相当担忧。此外，欧洲各地数据中心的涌现加剧了这些担忧。不过，我有一个注意事项想提请您考虑。在我看来，正是俄罗斯“单方面”且“直接建议”马斯克“切断并限制”其星盾系统。俄罗斯有能力干扰包括军事变体在内的整个星链系统，我相信，俄罗斯提醒了马斯克它有这种能力。

So much lies and propaganda, internet dead theory is true. Ukraine hacked the gps chips to bypass the speed limit starlink devices can travel to prevent being used on missiles. Starlink updated their systems to track the speed it takes to satellite hop and discovered Ukraine was violating their agreement. They caused their own problems but you all refuse to do the research because Elon bad mindset.

全是谎言和宣传，“互联网死亡理论”是真的。乌克兰破解了 GPS 芯片，绕过了星链设备为防止被用于导弹而设置的速度限制。星链更新了系统以追踪卫星跳跃所需的速度，并发现乌克兰违反了协议。他们自找麻烦，但你们所有人因为“埃隆很坏”的思维定势，拒绝去查证。

this is unverified social media speculation. the first casualty of war is truth.

这是未经证实的社交媒体猜测。战争的第一个牺牲品就是真相。

was the original story verified?

最初的故事得到证实了吗？

The Ukrainian’s and their supporters also destroyed gas pipelines as well and then refused to admit it because it hurt European’s. Fact.

乌克兰人及其支持者还摧毁了天然气管道，然后拒绝承认，因为这伤害了欧洲人。这是事实。

ah yes, Elon good, Ukraine bad. we get it.

啊，是的，埃隆好，乌克兰坏。我们懂了。

Starlink has been burned, it’s a dead product owned by a unreliable partner. It’s really crazy how Musk did not see that coming and threw his company away.

星链已经完了，这是一个由不可靠合作伙伴拥有的死产品。马斯克竟然没预见到这一点并毁掉了自己的公司，真是太疯狂了。

As we started to become unreliable and act more and more like a banana republic Guess who the alternative supplier would be? They other guys who manufacture iphone for us and build and manufacture their own space station, aircraft carriers, and high speed train network (which we do not have), and Musk’s Tesla, and on and on…

当我们开始变得不可靠，表现得越来越像香蕉共和国时，猜猜替代供应商会是谁？是那些为我们制造 iPhone，并建造和制造自己的空间站、航空母舰和高铁网络（我们没有这些），以及马斯克的特斯拉等等的那些人……

The problem with this article is that it presumes that Europe has some presumed and permanent access to technology that it did not build, pay for, or own. This technology is not promised or guaranteed in any way by any pre-existing treaty or contract. It’s another example of European entitlement. if Europe wants its own constellation it should go and build it not complain about it the charity of oth

这篇文章的问题在于，它假设欧洲对它没有建造、没有付费、也不拥有的技术拥有某种预设的、永久的访问权。这种技术并没有通过任何现有的条约或合同得到任何形式的承诺或保证。这是欧洲特权意识的又一个例子。如果欧洲想要自己的卫星星座，它应该去建造它，而不是抱怨别人的慈善。