There was something almost heartbreaking about the questions posed by the audience to the defence secretary, a lean man with a craggy face, the cropped silver hair of a Marine, and a laconic speaking-style. An Australian delegate noted Mr Trump’s dismissive comments about NATO, and his withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a big trade pact, and from the Paris climate accord. Should the region worry that it is seeing the “destruction of the rules-based order”, the Australian asked. A member of the Japanese parliament wondered aloud whether America still shares “common values” with its allies, or just security interests. 

heartbreaking：つらい
lean：スリムな
craggy：大きくて彫りの深い
cropped：短く刈った
laconic：無口な
dismissive：もうようなないと言わんばかりの
aloud：人が聞き取れるように声を出して

This being a blog rather than a newspaper article, readers may indulge the author for quoting Mr Mattis’s replies at some length. The defence secretary is not a dissident within the Trump administration. He is a loyal servant of a democratically elected president. But in his defence of the post-war order, he was trying to tell his Asian audience that some principles and instincts are so deeply rooted in the American spirit that they can survive the swings and counter-swings of electoral politics. 

at some length：相当詳しく
instincts：本能
swings：弧を描くように素早く向きを変えること
counter-：反対の

This, then, is my transcript of Mr Mattis’s unscripted remarks, replying to those questions about the rules-based order. Hear, here, an old-fashioned public servant wrestling with the duty of serving a very different sort of president, but one who won an election promising an “America First” foreign policy. 

Mr Mattis said: “Obviously, we have a new President in Washington, DC, we’re all aware of that, and there’s going to be fresh approaches taken.” But look at Mr Trump’s first foreign trip to the Middle East, he went on, and the president’s call on Arab allies and international organisations to work together on countering terrorism and bringing stability to the Middle East. Later in his reply, he argued that Mr Trump had visited Brussels to demonstrate that he stands by NATO allies “100%”. He further noted that Mr Trump had sent him to Tokyo and to Seoul on his first foreign trip as defence secretary, to make clear America’s commitment to its allies in Asia. 

The middle passage of his reply was the interesting part. He said: “I think we have been engaging the world for a long time. Historically, the Americans have been reluctant to see themselves in that role. We were quite happy keeping between our two oceans, we were happy to stay there, but the 20th century took us out of that. At the same time we recognised, especially the Greatest Generation we called them, coming home from world war two, what a crummy world if we all retreat inside our own borders. How many people deprived of good lives during the Depression, how many tens of millions of people killed in world war two? Like it or not, we are part of the world. That carries through, for all of the frustrations that are felt in America right now with the sense that at times we have carried an inordinate burden. And that is still very deeply rooted in the American psyche, that engagement with the world. To quote a British observer of us from some years ago: bear with us, once we have exhausted all possible alternatives, we Americans will do the right thing.” 

crummy：つまらない
deprived：困窮した
carries：困難にも関わらずやり遂げる
at times：ときには
inordinate：途方もない
psyche：精神
bear：耐える

For all those anxious to see America remain a guarantor of democratic values in Asia, this is a hard moment. For it is the democratic process itself that forces men such as Mr Mattis to twist himself in knots, and to try to convince allies that America stands by certain unvarying principles, even though his commander-in-chief won office by vowing to tear down the status quo. You see, China can murmur to Asian governments now: democracies are unstable and inconstant. 

guarantor：保証人
twist himself in knots：混乱に陥る
convince：納得させる
unvarying：不変の
murmur：ささやく

Here at the Shangri-La Dialogue, delegates do not hide their relief that America has a principled, clever man as defence secretary. But the Pentagon cannot and should not be the final arbiter of how America balances values and interests in national security and foreign policy. That, ultimately, is the job of the president. And here among the Asian military and security establishment, that thought is not reassuring at all. 

arbiter：仲裁者

マット国務長官が色々話をしても、その背後のトランプがどう動くかアジアの人たちはその不安を隠せない。トランプのNATOへの対応、TPPからの離脱、気象変動のパリ協定からの脱退はアジアの人たちにとって、大きな変化だ。そうしたトランプの考えが今まで通りにアジアの安全保障を考えているとは信じがたいと彼らは思っている。要するに信用していないということだ。

土曜日。今日は海野塾の日だ。ではまた明日。