March 9, 2025

 Left by 9:30. Blacksmith. Cool, sunny, light wind from the east. Bilthoven, Soestdijk, Amersfoort, airbase, Lage Vuursche (coffee), Baarn, Bussum, Bachlaan, Kerkelanden, Achttienhoven. After 11 summer, but only a few cows outside. Lots of people, unsurprisingly. Conversation with a businessman: Washington now also threatens to withhold natural gas from Europe, it's crazy [indeed], we should just go back to buying from Russia, there just has to be peace. I did my best and managed not engage (long-standing relationships are involved, going beyond him and me). Only after we went our separate ways did a good response come to mind: over here too, clearly we need more business people going into politics. Switching from one blackmailer to another, what could possibly go wrong? 

March 7, 2025

Left a little after 10. Blacksmith. Sunny spring day, but after a cool night. De Bilt, Zeist, Woudenberg, Amerongen, Ginkelduin (woods and camp ground still barren, quiet), Haarweg, Hoogstraat, Ruiterberg, back up Zeisterweg, etc. Croci everywhere, a few other signs of spring (not counting all the bare arms and bare legs out on the road). No baby sheep yet.

March 5, 2025

 Left at 9:30. Blacksmith. Still chilly, but full sun. Merwedekanaal, Vreeswijk, Lek, Uitweg, Benschop, Stuivenbergweg (nature flat, open, quiet, anticipatory--or maybe more accurately: milk production facilities being readied). Flapwing near Hollandse IJssel. Coffee at Mos. Disturbing but inevitable realities in the newspaper: all those European hugs of Zelensky, all those professions of full support, they seem to have been about us feeling good about ourselves. Now, push coming to shove, it appears that while the U.S. can't be relied upon anymore, the U.S. is still indispensable for Europe to make good on its pledges. Shameful.

Nukes now for the Netherlands?

 Someone asked me this the other day. The context, I'm sure, is the U.S. betrayal under the current administration of NATO's mutual defense obligation. The rest of the background to the question I'll have to determine when I talk to the person, later today. It could simply be about national defense, which would be a bit ignorant, since the Netherlands has not (been able to) provide for it by itself since 1940. The more interesting reason to ask the question is in the context of "Europe's" deterrent capabilities, and specifically with reference to European pledges of fairly unconditional support for Ukraine against the nuclear-armed Russian invader. This is about scenarios, most of which have to assume that Russia will not adjust its aims of ending Ukraine's existence as an independent, democratic society as part of an imperial project that also aims to restore the sphere of dominance of the former Soviet Union as well as (further) divide the West. First Ukraine: if Russia won't stop and the U.S. is now on Russia's side, a peace deal will prove elusive and Ukraine will have a harder time to hold its own. Given Europe's near-unconditional support, if Ukraine then started to lose more territory to the point where its resistance could collapse, "Europe" would have escalate its support. The limits to European military capabilities or its will to fight would become clear very quickly. If it did manage to join the fight, that might make a difference. In the best case, Russia might begin to feel cornered, the regime might begin to feel desperate. It was a British general who during the Cold War said that one cannot make a nuclear power feel desperate (it's too dangerous). The Americans got a taste of this in the first year of the war, when the Pentagon believed that the Kremlin, amid all kinds of set-backs in its invasion of Ukraine, began to look at using nuclear weapons. It took all matter of persuasion from the Secretary of Defense to get them to drop that idea. In a scenario where European forces would join the Ukrainian battlefield without U.S. backing, a desperate Russia would have so-called "escalation dominance." It is true that the French and the British do have nuclear weapons, but these are of the strategic, as opposed to the battlefield, kind. You can hit and destroy a big target with them, but these types of nukes are useless on the battlefield. Russia, on the other hand, does have so-called tactical nuclear weapons which, somewhat more credibly, could be used in battle. You can't deter the use of tactical nuclear weapons only with strategic nukes, because how credible is it to threaten the destruction of, for example, an enemy city (and subsequently surely one or more of your own) in response to the detonation of a small nuclear weapon somewhere in Eastern Ukraine? Perhaps that in the very long term "Europe," aiming for genuine "strategic autonomy," can decide to build tactical nuclear weapons, and maybe the Netherlands could in some way be part of that effort. It seems highly unlikely (though not impossible), and it would certainly not be in time to make a difference in Ukraine's current war for survival. For that war to end in a just peace, Russia will have to back off and accept its war aims, and its imperial project, are unattainable. Thanks to the choice made by the American voter last fall, that has become less, not more likely. I would love nothing more than to be proven wrong. 

March 2, 2025

 10:45 departure. Blacksmith. Sunny in the city, foggy everywhere else. Quite chilly. Bilthoven, air base, Wieksloterweg. Coffee at LV (Arno back). Still chilly by mid-day, but full sun.  Water like mirror everywhere. Tienhoven, Loenen, Oukoop, Haanweg (very flat and still), golden-yellow reeds Rodendijk as seen from Schutterskade. Leidse Rijn to Groenedijk. If not for the chilly air, spring.

February 28, 2025

 Left around 9.45. Nikor. Damp, chilly, dry. Groenekan, Hollandse Rading, Tienhoven, Gunterstein, Kortrijk, Breudijk, Zandweg. Sky never solidly gray, but gradually lighter with some clearing. Croci: Maartensdijk, Egelshoek, Breudijk; daffodils Zandweg. Dom from Tienhovens Kanaal and later de Strook.

February 26, 2025

 Left around 10. Blacksmith. Sunny and cool. Merwedekanaal, IJsselstein (Zuid IJsseldijk), Benschop. Mostly tailwind from Polsbroekerdam. Oudewater, Papekop, Woerden, Gerverskop, Haarzuilens, Leidse Rijn. Barely winter anymore. Coffee at Mos, chilly when clouds covered the sun.