January 5, 2026

Monday. Left around 1:15. Focus. Snow, the top layer newly fallen. The two tunnels to Veemarkt, Hooge Kampse Plas, and Beukenburg. Some people out, but mostly quiet on the roads and trails. Snow on the fields, snow on the tree branches. Turning off Beukenburg the front wheel got away and the rear brake came loose as it hit the ground, but no harm done. Prinsenlaan to Maartensdijk, to a deserted, magical Eikensteeg. Around Lage Vuursche and further north via the Kloosterlaan. An occasional mountainbiker. Wasmeer and back toward Hollandsche Rading. Bike paths into the wind and with the low sun to Groenekan. Another slide-out at Blauwkapel, then home. The implementation of the latest corollary to the Monroe Doctrine all over the news. Do as I say, or else--but the "else" may turn out to be complicated, and of course deadly for ordinary Venezuelans and possibly U.S. military personnel. Shocking how there are still national security professionals, as in an op-ed in the Times yesterday, contorting a justification for it all. Or maybe they're just part of the wider team. Why try to learn from previous experience if none of the consequences of these actions ever affect you personally? Might makes right--just make sure you're with might, and the people paying the price might as well not exist. Today, from the White House, additional noises about how "force" ought to guide policy. Hubristic and short-sighted, although still ruthless, and possibly increasingly so as resistance grows. How ruthless exactly, at home or abroad, we'll find out this year. Regardless, all power politics, all self-interest and no trust, no shared principles or institutions, it eventually leads to a world of all against all. Nobody wins in that scenario. This should be the lesson of 1914-1945, but, again, if the really bad stuff has always happened to others, you can come to believe that such lessons don't apply to you. Against the background of last year's experience with China's rare-earths boycott and the new National Security Strategy, the noises about Greenland are perfectly understandable. (Justified is a different matter). They are also much more than simple noises, because the current dependence on China for these vital resources really must keep the administration up at night. If your entire being consists of doing whatever the hell you want, and bragging about it, such vulnerability, such dependence, must be your worst nightmare. Opposition from hand-wringing, hapless Europeans is not going to stand in the way of addressing this vital geo-strategic issue, it is not going to stop the administration from taking the resources it considers essential for its global pre-eminence. And so, the dismantling proceeds, and the world becomes an ever uglier place.