The Wall Street Journal
Opinion: Potomac Watch
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2026
A Starlink Slowdown in Ukraine?
「ウクライナでStarlinkの通信速度が低下しているのか？」
Ukraine says its satellite data is being throttled and hamstringing the country’s ability to defend against Vladimir Putin. Plus, NATO’s top military commander unveils a plan to defend the alliance in the event Putin widens his war.
-
throttle /ˈθrɑːtəl/ 速度や流量を制限する、絞る
-
hamstring /ˈhæmstrɪŋ/ ～の活動能力を著しく損なう、～の足を引っ張る
太ももの裏側にある腱を指す語でもあります。そこを傷つけると走る能力が損なわれる、というイメージ -
defend against ～ /dɪˈfend əˈɡenst/ ～から身を守る、～に対抗して防衛する
-
unveil a plan /ʌnˈveɪl ə plæn/ 計画を公表する、明らかにする
-
in the event (that) ～ /ɪn ði ɪˈvent/ 万一～の場合には、～が起きた場合に備えて
Speaker 1: From the Opinion pages of The Wall Street Journal, this is Potomac Watch.
Kate B. Odell: Ukraine says its Starlink satellite data is slowing down and hamstringing the country's ability to defend itself from Vladimir Putin. Is the Trump administration once more trying to push Kiev into an ugly piece while putting little to no pressure on Putin? Meanwhile, NATO's top military commander unveils a plan to defend the European continent in the event of an attack from Putin. NATO's commander says in no uncertain terms, "If attacked, the alliance will fight." Those are our subjects today on Potomac Watch.
文脈上は an ugly peace（不利で屈辱的な和平）
And I'm your host, Kate Odell. So joining me today to talk about Ukraine and NATO is two of my favorite colleagues, Matt Continetti, who is a columnist for our Free Expression newsletter, and Joe Sternberg, who is a columnist for our pages and also a member of the editorial board. Gentlemen, thanks to you both. Matt, start us off here. The big story on Wednesday was that Ukraine on the battlefield had started noticing that its Starlink satellite data was slowing down. And Ukraine, of course, uses this service to manage its air defense and then to conduct some offensive strikes. Though as far as we know, Ukraine does not use Starlink to strike inside Russia proper. And so my opener question here is this looks to me paired with the diesel deal earlier this week to be a new round of attempts from the Trump administration to muscle Ukraine into a deal. So how do you read this Starlink interruption and what we know about it so far, Matt, and how it fits into a larger negotiation strategy from the Trump administration?
- Russia proper /ˈrʌʃə ˈprɑːpər/ ロシア本土、ロシアそのものの領域
proper はここでは「適切な」ではありません。地名の後ろに置くと、「その地名が本来指す中心的な領域・本体」という意味になります。
muscle someone into ～ は、力や威圧、強い圧力を使って人を何かに追い込む表現です。
Matthew Continetti: Right. Well, what we know about the Starlink matter is I'd say relatively little. We know that Ukraine's experiencing connectivity issues for some of their weapons at high speeds and that they believe that somehow it goes back to Starlink itself. The president said that he has not ended intelligence sharing with Ukraine, which others had reported or speculated on. So it's a very murky situation, at least with regard to Starlink. We know that of course Elon Musk has kind of gone back and forth on his attitude toward the Ukraine war over time. And of course, Elon Musk is a close advisor to the president on every... It depends on which day of the week, I guess, when they're arguing or not, but they seem to be back in good graces these days. I think the larger picture here, Kate, is, as you said, Trump believes that the way to lower diesel prices is to pressure Ukraine. Now, Russia itself, according to the Institute for the Study of War, admits that the increase in diesel is not connected to the Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries. The Russians themselves blame the Strait of Hormuz for the increase in diesel fuel, but Trump thinks it is. And so we've seen weeks now of stepped-up pressure.
back in good graces /bæk ɪn ɡʊd ˈɡreɪsɪz/ 再び良好な関係になって、再び気に入られて
in someone's good graces は「人に好意的に見られている、機嫌を損ねていない」という慣用表現です。
And also at the same time, an openness to dealing with Putin. And really, you can go back to the summer when a Russian economic minister attended the G20 Summit in Asheville, North Carolina under the auspices of Treasury Secretary Bessent as an observer. And at that moment, people were kind of raising eyebrows saying, "What's going on here?" And out of that came the news that Putin would be invited to Florida for a summit at the end of the year. And so ever since the summer, Trump has tried to, I think, reestablish a relationship with Putin, and that has come at the expense of his relationship with Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
- under the auspices of ～ /ˈʌndər ði ˈɔːspɪsɪz əv/ ～の後援のもとで、～の主導・監督のもとで
Kate B. Odell: I want to get back with Matt on the politics here, but Joe, staying with the substance of aiming for a peace in Ukraine, I mean, look, it would be great if the president could get a peace deal in Ukraine, and I think everyone accepts now that even an imperfect one might be worth it to stop the war. But the problem, of course, is that Putin won't agree even to a ceasefire, even to a temporary ceasefire on even some types of targets. And we've had multiple stillborn ceasefire attempts at this point. And, Joe, this is starting to feel like a pattern where the Trump administration starts to do... They start turning the screws on Ukraine in various ways, they start making concessions to Putin, some that Matt mentioned, but I remember too last year, remember there was a 28-point plan for peace in Ukraine that looked like a very bad document of capitulation. But then once it became clear that that wouldn't work very well and that Congress really wasn't going to tolerate it and that Putin himself might not even accept it, they backed off. And then eventually the Trump administration starts to focus on other things and then they come back, but they try the same strategy again, which is just unilateral pressure on Ukraine and not putting any pressure on Putin. And so do you detect any change in the strategy here or how do you read, for instance, the diesel deal? They seem to think that's a good negotiating chip for them, and I'm hoping you can unpack that logic for us.
• stay with the substance of something /steɪ wɪð ðə ˈsʌbstəns əv ˈsʌmθɪŋ/ 〜の本質・中身に話を絞る
substance は「物質」だけでなく、「実質」「内容」「本質」
• stillborn /ˈstɪlbɔːrn/ 生まれる前に終わった、実現しなかった 「死産の」
• turn the screws on someone /tɜːrn ðə skruːz ɑːn ˈsʌmwʌn/ 〜への締め付けを強める、圧力を一段と強める
• capitulation /kəˌpɪtʃəˈleɪʃən/ 降伏、全面的な屈服 capitulum（小さな頭、項目）に由来
Joseph C. Sternberg: Kate, I mean, the problem is if we're going to talk about whether there's a change in strategy here, that's assuming that there was a strategy in the beginning that you can change. It's not clear to me that there has been. I mean, look, I take the point that President Trump enjoys negotiating and he thinks that the act of negotiating is a powerful diplomatic tool that he has often thought we have underused for whatever reason. But we're now in the situation where he keeps negotiating with himself over Ukraine precisely because he misunderstands what Vladimir Putin's interests are in this conflict and Trump misunderstands the fact that what Putin wants here, you can't really negotiate on. There are fundamental US interests and interests of our allies involved in not giving Putin the things that he cares most deeply about in Ukraine, namely control of Ukraine. So you have to come up with some kind of policy that accounts for the fact that this is not a situation that's going to be amenable to negotiation. One of the things that I find vexing about this is that we often find ourselves in the situation where it's as if Trump is thrashing around looking for any little bit of leverage that he can find in the situation, whether it's the diesel or some kind of pressure on Zelenskyy to get the Ukrainian side to negotiate with a partner that doesn't want to negotiate with them. We're doing all of this. And then you look at something like the Starlink story where part of the news here is basically how little the Ukrainians are asking of America there. What they want is access to this communication technology so that they can continue defending themselves. This is not an argument about whether the US is going to withdraw boots that we have on the ground because we don't have any there. So we're in this perverse situation where essentially negotiating with ourselves right now. And in the course of doing that, we are refusing to do very simple low cost things that we could be continuing to do that would potentially offer big benefits for America's national interest and our allies.
• underuse /ˌʌndərˈjuːz/ 十分に活用しない、活用しきれていない
• namely /ˈneɪmli/ すなわち、具体的に言えば
• be amenable to something /bi əˈmiːnəbəl tə ˈsʌmθɪŋ/ 〜を受け入れられる、〜に応じられる、〜による解決が可能である
• vexing /ˈveksɪŋ/ 非常にもどかしい、悩ましい、腹立たしい
• thrash around /θræʃ əˈraʊnd/ もがく、手当たり次第に動き回る
• perverse /pərˈvɜːrs/ ゆがんだ、道理に反した、皮肉な
Kate B. Odell: Yeah, Joe, I think that's a great point, especially on the battlefield reality. As I think some of our listeners know, the Ukraine war has been going on so long, voters have lost track of it maybe a little bit or have a dim sense that nobody is really winning, that Ukraine can't really regain the momentum or its territory. And so I think it's worth pointing out just how much military progress Ukraine has made in stabilizing the front lines. NATO's top military commander this week at a conference in Warsaw said that Ukraine's front lines largely had been stabilized and that they had done an impressive job doing that, particularly in 2026. And so the Institute for the Study of War, an organization that produces reports on the Ukraine war, was writing this week about actually there is a narrow window here where Ukraine has managed to regain some momentum, they've erased some of the territory that Russia has taken, and that we have this potential opening now to try to have some leverage to get Putin to a negotiating table. And so I think that the timing here is also particularly regrettable. And, Matt, just ending on that, I think President Trump should probably consider that the one reason the Ukraine war hasn't become a political disaster for him is because the Ukrainians have been willing to keep fighting and hold the line there. And so it's hard not to detect in all of this a cynical kind of political ploy to say, "Ukraine's really causing all of our problems" ahead of the election to try to change the subject from the Iran war. But I think Russia accommodation is also really unpopular with voters. And so I'm curious if you think, one, that's what's going on here, that this is animated maybe less by than the substantive no negotiations, but the midterms, and then whether that is really a strategy that's going to help him kind of blunt his liabilities around the Iran war.
• have a dim sense that ... /hæv ə dɪm sens ðæt/ 〜というぼんやりした認識を持っている
dim は「薄暗い、ぼんやりした」。
• erase /ɪˈreɪs/ 消す、帳消しにする、取り除く
• it's hard not to detect ... /ɪts hɑːrd nɑːt tə dɪˈtekt/ 〜があると感じずにはいられない、〜を感じ取らずにはいられない
• a cynical political ploy /ə ˈsɪnɪkəl pəˈlɔɪ/ 冷笑的な政治的策略
• be animated by something /bi ˈænɪmeɪtɪd baɪ ˈsʌmθɪŋ/ 〜によって動かされる、〜を原動力とする
animate は「命を吹き込む、動かす」
• blunt one's liabilities /blʌnt wʌnz ˌlaɪəˈbɪlətiz/ 自分にとって不利な要素の影響を和らげる
blunt は本来「刃先を鈍らせる」。比喩的には、何かの威力や影響を弱めることです。
Matthew Continetti: Well, I do believe the midterms have a role in this debate and it's because of the price of fuel and specifically diesel fuel. And Trump has drawn this connection. Again, I think an overstated connection between the global increases in diesel and Ukraine's attacks on the Russian energy infrastructure. Interestingly, those attacks of course are targeting the energy infrastructure of the Russian war machine, whereas Russia's attacks on Ukraine's infrastructure are all civilian targets. And indeed Russia's been, I think, purposely targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure as their main forces on the battle line have not advanced. In fact, near zero gains to quote the Institute for the Study of War once again since March 2026. And that, like you said, just last week we had this culmination of Operation Vivaldi in which Ukrainian forces actually reclaimed territory from Russia. So Trump is worried about fuel prices. I also think we can't underestimate the personal dimension in this. Trump likes talking to Vladimir Putin. This is always the case. And he comes out of these phone calls essentially kind of talking like Putin probably talked to him. And so they had a recent phone call. The phone call was supposed to be about this lab leak in Siberia. And instead of hearing about what's going on with the lab leak, we heard a lot about how Zelenskyy's problem, about how Zelenskyy needs to stop attacking Russia, and how Zelenskyy needs to go. That was also part of Trump's rhetorical escalation in the past week. This is not good for Trump in any way. First of all, you mentioned electoral disaster. How many other electoral disasters can the man have? I mean, he has this extremely unpopular war in Iran. He has extremely unpopular economic policy. The Republicans are headed into a midterm election in less than three weeks that they're not favored to win, certainly in the House of Representatives. So turning the focus on Ukraine, I don't think accomplishes anything. And I'd also just add, this is a moment where you can really feel the loss of individuals. Because Trump operates just so much on a personal basis, what he thinks of the person on the other side of the table or on the other end of the phone, Lindsey Graham's death is a real blow to the efforts to put pressure on Russia and get some progress that way. We just had Trump sign the Lindsey Graham Sanctions Act, and here he has tools to put economic pressure on Russia and he is not using them. And instead, he's putting this rhetorical pressure and potentially this type of intelligence pressure via Starlink on the Ukrainians. It's completely backward in my view.
• culmination of something /ˌkʌlmɪˈneɪʃən əv ˈsʌmθɪŋ/ 〜の集大成、〜の最終的な到達点
the other end
• backward /ˈbækwərd/ 逆方向の、後退した、道理に反した
Kate B. Odell: Well, you're right to point out that the practical electoral effect here may be reminding voters of something, another policy of his that they don't like very much, which is his negotiating strategy in Ukraine. Joe, picking up on Matt's point about the loss of individuals and that the institutions like Congress that could play a role in checking some of what Trump is up to here, we did see a letter from lawmakers telling him to abandon the diesel deal, but mostly from lawmakers like Thom Tillis, John Curtis, Republicans not necessarily in the heart of the rank and file that Trump has to listen to when they start warning about something being a problem. And you do have behind the scenes lawmakers increasingly frustrated with the president's handling of Ukraine, but does Congress have any way to stop the diesel deal or is it exclusively just a backbone and will issue and not wanting to challenge the president on this?
• rank and file /ˌræŋk ən ˈfaɪl/ 一般構成員、一般党員
• abandon /əˈbændən/ 断念する、放棄する
• backbone /ˈbækboʊn/ 気骨、信念を貫く強さ
Joseph C. Sternberg: Well, I think that some of those Republicans who are grumbling privately are going to have to start doing that in public to create a degree of pressure on the president and to remind him that what he is doing now with the diesel deal is not necessarily going to solve his underlying political problem on energy prices and also is not necessarily going to be popular on its own merits. Now, I can understand the resistance to the idea of poking the bear with only a few weeks to go before the election in a bad year for Republicans for the ones who are hanging on, many of them are expecting that if they do win, it's going to be by a narrow margin. I get it. But I think that after the election, there is going to have to be a moment where some of these Republicans in Congress who are still around are saying, "What are we doing here?" I mean, what is the point of passing this legislation at some political cost to themselves because it always requires a certain amount of expenditure political capital to get something like that over the finish line and then to allow Trump in his mercurial fashion to just cut it off because he feels like it. So I think that part of the dynamic here, and we'll have to see how this plays out, is Congress going to rediscover a sense of itself once Trump gets into this lame duck period after the midterm? And how invested will lawmakers feel in this legislation that they've just passed? I mean, you would hope that they would feel invested in it because they passed it. They thought it was important enough to do that.
• on its own merits /ɑːn ɪts oʊn ˈmerɪts/ それ自体の価値・内容に基づいて、ほかの事情を抜きにして評価すると
• poke the bear /poʊk ðə ber/ わざと相手を刺激する、怒らせる
• get something over the finish line /ɡet ˌsʌmθɪŋ ˌoʊvər ðə ˈfɪnɪʃ laɪn/ 物事を何とか最後まで進め、達成・成立させる
• in one's mercurial fashion /ɪn wʌnz mərˈkjʊriəl ˈfæʃən/ 気まぐれなやり方で、気分次第で
mercurial は「気まぐれな、気分が変わりやすい」。人の態度や気分が急に変化する様子を表す、やや硬い語です。
• lame duck period /ˌleɪm ˈdʌk ˌpɪriəd/ レームダック期間、任期末などで政治的影響力が弱まる時期
• be invested in something /bi ɪnˈvestɪd ɪn ˈsʌmθɪŋ/ 何かに強く関与している、強い思い入れや利害関係がある
invest は「投資する」。お金だけでなく、時間、労力、感情、政治的な信用などを何かに注ぎ込むことにも使います。
Kate B. Odell: Right. I mean, my two, I think, final cautionary notes on this topic is the first is that I think, look, when President Biden started helping Ukraine, eventually over time, especially Republican voters did sour on that, but that's not because they didn't want to help Ukraine. My impression of the polling and the information behind it is really that the perception was that Joe Biden did not have a strategy, that he was giving Ukraine kind of enough weapons to hang on, but was afraid that the war might widen and nervous about escalation with Putin. And so that is what voters soured on under the Biden administration. And the Trump administration is, they're not directly providing the weapons. They've made Europe provide the weapons as a rigamarole, but I think Trump has long ago started risking entering the same territory. And the other quick point banging around in my mind is too about the winter of 2022 was the last time where it looked like Ukraine had as much battlefield leverage as they do now. And the Biden administration was just extremely slow to arm Ukraine for a potential counteroffensive in the spring of 2023, provided way too few weapons and was reticent that Ukraine could learn new platforms and the free world and particularly Ukraine is still paying for that mistake. And so the Starlink, I think, news has to be considered in that larger picture of that this is a window of opportunity for the United States and the free world to try to put more pressure on Russia and it'd be a shame to miss another one the way that Biden did in 2022. We'll hold it there and take one quick break on Potomac Watch.
• cautionary note /ˈkɔːʃəˌneri noʊt/ 注意を促す言葉、警告的な指摘。cautionary tale（教訓となる話）の cautionary
• sour on /ˈsaʊər ɑːn/ ～への評価が悪くなる、～に愛想を尽かす。支持や熱意が次第に失われるニュアンス。sour は「酸っぱい」から「不快なものになる・悪化する」へ意味が広がった表現。
• rigmarole /ˈrɪɡməˌroʊl/ 面倒な手続き、煩雑なやり取り。
• bang around in my mind /bæŋ əˈraʊnd ɪn maɪ maɪnd/ 頭の中でずっと引っかかっている、考えが頭の中で響き続ける。
• reticent /ˈretɪsənt/ 口数が少ない、積極的に意見を示さない、慎重で消極的な。reticent about ... で「～について口を閉ざしている・積極的に語ろうとしない」。
Kate B. Odell: Welcome back. Let's turn our attention over to a speech this week from the top NATO commander, General Grynkewich. He is known in the Air Force for his call-sign, Grynch. So if you hear us referring to him as such, that is why. Let's take a quick listen to what the general had to say at a conference in Warsaw.
Audio: General Alexus Grynkewich: Burden of escalation would rest squarely upon the aggressor. They and they alone would bear the full moral, political, and strategic weight of deciding whether to do so. And here, we must ensure the adversary also knows that we have the advantage that escalation will only worsen his position, both militarily and politically. And should an adversary threaten escalation by saber-rattling or should one actually decide to escalate during conflict, it will not fracture our alliance. Instead, it will only bind us more tightly together. We should take comfort in our ability to deliver mass effects and the implicit warning that we could match any enemy move up the escalation ladder. These same factors should also give pause to any adversary. Seeing an alliance united, strong, and ready, they should quickly realize the military calculus of escalation is too high.
• rest squarely upon /rest ˈskwerli əˈpɑːn/ ～に全面的に帰する、～が全面的に負う。
• bear the full weight of /ber ðə fʊl weɪt əv/ ～の重み・責任を全面的に負う。
• saber-rattling /ˈseɪbər ˌrætlɪŋ/ 武力をちらつかせた威嚇、強硬な軍事的脅し。saber は「サーベル」、rattle は「ガタガタ鳴らす」。
• take comfort in /teɪk ˈkʌmfərt ɪn/ ～に安心感を得る、～を心強く思う
Kate B. Odell: Joe, so the NATO commander gave an extended speech saying, "Don't mess with us. Don't confuse our defensive alliance with one that lacks resolve or the will to fight." In fact, he said, "We will fight." I wonder if you'd talk about this speech first as the European audience, and what do you think the NATO commander here is trying to tell our allies in a very delicate moment where we're not sure what the president is up to in Ukraine, worried about the war widening, and any number of other things that have the Europeans nervous?
Joseph C. Sternberg: Okay. I think you're right to start out thinking about this in terms of the European audience, because I interpreted that as being a primary audience for this. This was not just directed at Vladimir Putin. I mean, let's be clear that Putin is still the main threat to NATO at the moment. The problem that Europe has had, and this has really come into focus since the war in Ukraine started back in 2022, is that it had been about a generation to a generation and a half since the last time that they had had to think seriously about European security, NATO strategy, and how all of these different pieces of the puzzle would fit together. And if you think about it, it's remarkable that they made it that long without thinking about this because the Russian threat never went away. Even before the Ukraine war started in winter of 2022, you had a bunch of episodes up to and including that Russian chemical agent assassination in Salisbury, Britain that ought to have called a lot of attention to the fact that NATO was going to have to adjust to various hybrid threats and think seriously about how you would respond to some of these provocations from Russia. They're very far behind on that process right now. And what I heard when I listened to the general speech was an attempt to approach some of the particular concerns that always bubble up in Europe around these issues. So for example, one thing that hobbled the German response to the Ukraine war for the first several years was really this panic that would bubble up within Germany at every hint that there might be some kind of escalation because they thought that the next step was going to be a nuclear war. So you've got to come up with some way of training both the European political class and the public to think about what are the different steps in a potential attack or escalation scenario. How are we going to reassure voters that actually it isn't either rollover or nuclear apocalypse, that there are actually a lot of very useful, important steps that the NATO alliance can take between those two points that will contribute to defense. So I think from that perspective, it was an important speech for them to hear this is an important thought process that Europe is going to have to continue going through. It's probably not helpful that Trump himself is so mercurial on some of these issues, but all the more reason then for Europe to be thinking about this.
• ought to have called a lot of attention to /ˈɔːt tə hæv kɔːld ə lɑːt əv əˈtenʃən tuː/ ～にもっと大きな注意を向けさせるべきだった。ought to have + 過去分詞は「～すべきだった」という過去の義務・期待
• hobble /ˈhɑːbəl/ ～の進行や活動を妨げる、足かせとなる。
• nuclear apocalypse /ˈnuːkliər əˈpɑːkəlɪps/ 核による破滅、核の黙示録。
• rollover /ˈroʊlˌoʊvər/ ここでは、抵抗せずに相手の要求を受け入れること、あっさり屈服すること。
• mercurial /mɜːrˈkjʊriəl/ 気まぐれな、変わりやすい、予測しにくい。
Kate B. Odell: Matt, I was struck by the general laid out a pretty specific strategy of how the West would handle say a Russian invasion of the Baltics. So he did not name Russia or talk about the specific geography of any such attack. And he described it as, "Blunt the invasion and break it," and kind of roughly saying, "We'll try to stop it in its tracks. We'll continue to use a mix of precision weapons and autonomous weapons to keep it from going forward and then break if it keeps going. And if Putin were to double down, we will hit everything that generates that force." It's just really striking, like Joe said, to hear kind of a return to what we commonly did in the Cold War, which was discuss how we would deal with such a contingency and also exercise it to show that we were ready to execute it. And so I want to get your impressions of just the existence of this debate at all and then the merits of the strategy he's laying out.
• stop it in its tracks /stɑːp ɪt ɪn ɪts træks/ その場で食い止める、進行を即座に止める。
Matthew Continetti: Well, I thought it was a remarkable speech, not just for its text and its delivery, but also the environment in which it was delivered. I mean, first there's the American political environment and the messages that we heard from the Grynch are not the messages you hear from the White House or the Pentagon, which has been very interested in removing US forces from Europe, or at least redeploying them from our legacy bases to other bases inside Europe. And of course, as we've just been discussing, it's not what you would hear from President Trump either. And then there's the geopolitical context. The speech was delivered amidst a rising hybrid war between Russia and the West. That war is conducted on the cyber front with numerous cyber attacks. We've seen rising numbers of Russian drones penetrate NATO airspace. And just today on Wednesday, October 14th, as we're recording this, we had a report in our paper about recent drone attacks on ships transiting NATO waters. And of course, the implication is that those are Russian drones as well. So, Putin, as he's reached an impasse on the battlefield in Ukraine, has essentially lashed out in two directions. The first, as I remarked, is against the Ukrainian civilian population. I would just tell the Germans, "You don't need a nuclear bomb to make Ukraine uninhabitable." And that's what Vladimir Putin is trying to do. He's trying to make Ukraine uninhabitable. And of course, millions of Ukrainians have already left Ukraine. And if he's successful in this coming winter and destroying all of their supplies of heat, destroying all their potable water, randomly targeting hospitals and schools, it's the equivalent of a nuclear bomb and making that country unlivable. So he's done that on one hand. And on the other hand, he is increasing the pressure on NATO. He's testing NATO, typical Russian probing techniques, trying to see how far they can go. And to date, he's met almost no resistance. And that's why I think the general speech was important is he was saying, "Look, there is a point at which we will respond," and I hope we never get to that point.
• lash out /læʃ aʊt/ 激しく攻撃する、怒りをぶつける。
• uninhabitable /ˌʌnɪnˈhæbɪtəbəl/ 人が住めない、居住に適さない。inhabit（住む）に、否定の un- と「可能」を表す -able が付いた語。
• unlivable /ʌnˈlɪvəbəl/ 暮らしていけない、生活できない。uninhabitable と意味は近いが、unlivable は「人が住めるか」だけでなく、「そこで生活を続けられるか」という点に焦点を当てやすい。
• potable water /ˈpoʊtəbəl ˈwɔːtər/ 飲料水、安全に飲める水。potable は「飲用に適した」という意味のやや専門的な語。日常会話では drinking water のほうが一般的。
Kate B. Odell: Stay with us. We've got to take one quick break.
Audio: Speaker 3: Don't forget, you can reach the latest episode of Potomac Watch anytime. Just ask your smart speaker, "Play the Opinion: Potomac Watch podcast."
Speaker 1: From the Opinion pages of The Wall Street Journal, this is Potomac Watch.
Kate B. Odell: Welcome back. I'm chatting with my colleagues, Matt Continetti and Joe Sternberg about Ukraine. I think you're right to zero into the front lines of this current contest is Ukraine. And yes, he's testing NATO, but the reason why we want to stop him in Ukraine, one of them is so that the Western, including American sailors and soldiers are never fighting Putin on European territory. Matt, I wanted to get your thought, last question here today and feel free to take it briefly, but the one thing that we noted in today's editorial and caught my attention in this speech was the general specifically said that NATO would not try to inflict a, quote, "strategic defeat" on Russia in the event of such a confrontation. And look, obviously NATO would want to limit escalation in any sort of direct confrontation with Vladimir Putin. Nobody would want to see nuclear escalation here. Nobody suggesting that NATO march on Moscow. But it is striking to me that we are taking off the table facts unseen a strategic defeat for Putin that he should have to ponder before he invades a nuclear alliance with a lot of military and economic power that outweighs his. Help us think about that line and how does it compare even maybe to what we did in the Cold War, if that's useful?
• inflict a strategic defeat /ɪnˈflɪkt ə strəˈtiːdʒɪk dɪˈfiːt/ 戦略的敗北を与える。inflict は「苦痛・損害・敗北などを相手に与える」という動詞です。
• ponder /ˈpɑːndər/ 熟考する、じっくり考える。think よりも、時間をかけて慎重に考えるニュアンスがあります。ponder the consequences は「結果を熟考する」。
• outweigh /ˌaʊtˈweɪ/ ～を上回る、～より重要である。文字どおりには「重さで上回る」こと。
Matthew Continetti: Well, I do think it's related to the nuclear brinkmanship you mentioned, and that is the understanding in D.C. is that if Putin felt directly threatened, that would be a case where he would consider using a tactical nuclear weapon on the battlefield. And so perhaps that was a way of calming the Russians or kind of putting them off of that option. But it's also a reflection of just how America is dealing with the conflicts in which we're embroiled these days. We telegraph a lot. I mean, our president, of course, telegraphs everything. He said no attack against Iran until after the election. He says amidst these Houthi militia attacks on civilian targets in Saudi Arabia, "Well, Houthis, you might be sorry," and we don't know what that means or what he's going to do. And here's the same thing is we're foreclosing this option. And we also know, of course, that already there was an attempt to remove Putin from power earlier on in the war, that Prigozhin putsch, which failed and Prigozhin wound up in an airplane accident as Putin's enemies often do. And we can fully expect that if Putin did meet the type of pressure I'm describing, whether it's even harsher economic pain that's already been imposed on Russia, mainly by the Ukrainians, or because he makes the second catastrophic error of attacking a NATO country, his days would be numbered.
• nuclear brinkmanship /ˈnuːkliər ˈbrɪŋkmənʃɪp/ 核をめぐる瀬戸際政策。
• tactical nuclear weapon /ˈtæktɪkəl ˈnuːkliər ˈwepən/ 戦術核兵器。戦場での軍事目標への使用を想定した核兵器。
• put someone off an option /pʊt ˈsʌmwʌn ɔːf ən ˈɑːpʃən/ 人にある選択肢を思いとどまらせる。put someone off は「人の気をそぐ」「人にやめさせる」
• be embroiled in /bi ɪmˈbrɔɪld ɪn/ ～に巻き込まれている、～に深く関与している。
• telegraph /ˈtelɪɡræf/ （意図・計画などを）事前に明かす、手の内を見せる。
• foreclose an option /fɔːrˈkloʊz ən ˈɑːpʃən/ 選択肢を封じる、選択できないようにする。foreclose は、もともと権利や可能性を排除するという意味
• putsch /pʊtʃ/ クーデター、武力などによる政権転覆の試み。
• his days would be numbered /hɪz deɪz wʊd bi ˈnʌmbərd/ 彼の命運は尽きるだろう、彼の残された時間はわずかだろう。
Joseph C. Sternberg: I mean, I just want to add in here that there is also a domestic political component to a lot of this in Europe right now. Lest we forget, France is going to have a presidential election next year, whether we want them to or not. And right now it looks like the likely winner of that would be Marine Le Pen and the insurgent right national rally, whatever you want to say about that party and the ideological journey that they have been on in these recent years. They are potentially not as hard line on Russia as other parties and French politics would be. And that would also be true if the French left is successful in that election. And then across the Rhine in Germany, which is the other major European country that you have to think about here, at the moment, the most popular party is this insurgent right alternative for Germany or AFD party, also notoriously sympathetic to Putin and Russia in general. And so my interpretation of some of this speaking about not inflicting too much of a strategic loss on Putin in this speech that we've been discussing, I do think there's going to have to be an element to this NATO strategizing of not making promises that we're unlikely to be able to keep and also not making threats that we're going to be unlikely politically to be able to follow through on. And I think that the domestic politics in Europe are going to come into that discussion quite a lot over the next couple years.
Kate B. Odell: Well, thanks Joe and Matt. That's all for today on Potomac Watch. We'll be back tomorrow.
WSJ:20261025
• circumspect /ˈsɜːrkəm spekt/ 慎重な、用心深い
• rebuke /rɪˈbjuːk/ 厳しい叱責、非
• grift /ɡrɪft/ 詐欺、不正な手段による金もうけ、汚職的な行為
• outpost /ˈaʊtpoʊst/ 前哨基地、遠隔地の拠点
• hamper /ˈhæmpər/ 妨げる、支障をきたす
• skimp on ～ /skɪmp ɑːn/ ～を節約しすぎる、～に十分な費用をかけない