April 11, 2026

Saturday. Left at 9:54. Blacksmith. On the cool side, but it gradually got milder. Gray skies, with a thin layer on top and some smaller clouds below. The thin layer allowed the sun to push through enough to create some shadow along the way. Fairly stiff southerly winds. Saturday traffic on the way out of town by way of the Gele brug, and the same in the suburbs and the Rivierpad. We're deep into early spring now, with whites, yellows, pinks, and lots of variations of green everywhere, today contrasting very well against the gray skies. Lots of little lambs, but no waterfowl chicks anywhere, and no waterfowl nesting either. Grass already being cut--by a farmer along the Rivierpad, and in a private yard at the start of Gerverscop. From Gerverscop now, with the leaves returning to the trees, only the Vleuten church visible. However, coming off the Schutterskade and turning toward Portengen to the right in the far distance the high rises of Amsterdam. How far is it really, from the farthest point of Zuidoost to the northermost point of Breukelen (which along the train tracks might as well still be Utrecht)? And yet, hardly anybody between Gerverscop and Kockengen. Some boating traffic has returned at Gunterstein. Nothing much happening along the Veenkade or the rest of the way home, to Mos, though various wildflowers along the bike path at the Strook. In the paper the interesting suggestion by the Ukrainian president for a new European security arrangement no longer (how could it) relying on the U.S. but instead being organized by the EU with the essential additions of Norway, Turkey, the UK, and, indeed, Ukraine. We don't have to abolish NATO, or even have any member state leave, if only because both Europe and the U.S. stand to lose much from a formal rupture. Even the current administration seems to understand this. Still, for the foreseeable future it would be irresponsible for European governments to treat Washington as a reliable friend. The current administration (elected by a majority of the electorate), while an ally on paper, clearly is quite hostile. The best that can be achieved in the coming years is to keep the transatlantic relationship on ice and avoid any direct confrontation, for example over Greenland. And in the meantime, the EU can elevate security cooperation to the top of the list of its emerging reform agenda. Not that it is easy to figure out how to integrate non-members with EU initiatives, probably not endorsed by all member states, but it needs to be done anyway. It's not that the Russian military menace is so great right now--the same paper reports that Moscow is now recruiting cannon fodder at its universities. That's the war coming home for Russian middle and upper classes. Scraping the bottom of the recruitment barrel. But it is a big deal that, for all intents and purposes, and for the first time since the Second World War, the United States can no longer be considered an integral part of the defense of Europe. This is just what Soviet and Russian leaders have tried to achieve since 1947. Something credible will have to take its place, and we might as well start with the Ukrainian president's idea; we might as well begin by acknowledging that, for all its hardship, Ukraine is becoming an important ally, and not just a neighbor with its back against the wall.