In the hours before Hurricane Idalia swept through Florida’s Big Bend region, flooding towns and knocking out power for hundreds of thousands, residents of Cedar Key were thinking back to the last time the area was struck by a storm of this magnitude.

The year was 1896, and the tiny barrier island had taken a direct hit. Winds reaching 125 mph and a 10.5-foot storm surge wrecked buildings on Cedar Key and nearly leveled the town on the neighboring island of Atsena Otie. 

This week, this scenic region – which is developed so little that it is known as Florida’s Nature Coast – was sorely tested again. Most of Cedar Key’s 700 residents heeded evacuation orders ahead of Category 3 Idalia, whose storm surge sent waves rolling chest-deep into some of the buildings.

But even as residents have stayed safe, the storm’s toll on an important local industry, shellfish, remains to be tallied. Numerous buildings will need major repairs. And the storm has served notice that even as this island enlists natural solutions such as “living shorelines” to defend itself, it faces ongoing risks due to rising sea levels, warming water temperatures, and intensifying storms.

What Cedar Keyans have going for them, as they deal with Hurricane Idalia’s wreckage, is that they show no signs of losing heart. 

“I was here during [2016 Hurricane] Hermine, and I saw what it did to the town, and we worked our butts off,” says Mike Allen, director of the Nature Coast Biological Station, a University of Florida research center located on Cedar Key. “The only thing that gives me a little bit of peace about this one is I’ve seen it before, and I’ve seen how fast this community responds. We’ll clean it up, and if you come here eight weeks from now, you’ll be amazed.”

Hurricane Idalia made landfall early Wednesday morning in Keaton Beach, Florida, about 50 miles north of Cedar Key. It unleashed devastating flooding, plus 125 mph winds, in parts of the Big Bend – the region where the Gulf of Mexico coastline arcs southward from Florida’s panhandle. Buffered by its slight distance from the storm’s center, Cedar Key was spared from the worst-case scenario. Wind speeds topped out at about 60 mph – tropical storm speeds – and the storm surge reached about 7 feet, enough to cause significant flooding and structural damage in many parts of the island, but leaving buildings on higher elevation mostly unscathed.

Jacob Turcotte/Staff

On Thursday, scenes of recovery were unfolding across the island. Road crews worked to clear downed trees and power lines. Power was restored in the early hours of the morning; the water was turned on again later that day (although a boil-water notice has been issued). Evacuated residents were returning to check on their property and each other. Piles of debris began to form outside flooded homes and businesses. 

Clams at risk

Longtime Cedar Keyans know the drill. Although Idalia was the worst storm to rake the island in living memory, its residents have lived through other bad storms, and they say their community pulls together quickly after such a disaster. But it’s not just the damage on land that they have to contend with – there’s also the damage that may be hiding underwater.

The tiny size and sleepy nature of Cedar Key belies its outsize role in Florida’s aquaculture industry. It produces an estimated 90% of the state’s clams, harvesting about 90 million clams annually and generating $35 million in revenue. 

But hurricanes can represent a major threat to local clam farmers, particularly the mom and pop operations that are still common in Cedar Key. Forceful currents can knock the clams from the seafloor, where they like to nestle into the mud and sand, and cause them to wash away. Freshwater in the form of rain dumped from the storm and increased discharge from the area’s rivers can also harm clams, which are sensitive to water salinity levels as well as to warming water temperatures.

“Two of the main stressors for clams are too much freshwater and too much heat,” says Dr. Allen at the biological research station. “My concern in a storm like this is, you’ve got clams that are already stressed because the water temperature is 90 degrees [Fahrenheit]. We’ve had a fairly wet summer, so there’s a lot of freshwater around, and then you add a tropical storm on them. It could put them over the edge.” 

Rebecca Blackwell/AP

In this photo taken with a drone, businesses and homes are seen on Cedar Key, Florida, ahead of the expected arrival of Hurricane Idalia, Aug. 29, 2023.

It is still too early to assess clam mortality rates, or see how many clams were uprooted and lost in the storm, says Dr. Allen, since most clammers have not been able to get out on the water to visit their beds. 

“It will be several days before a clear picture emerges on impact, but most likely it will not be good,” Leslie Sturmer, a shellfish expert who works for the University of Florida’s Extension Office, writes in an email.

Undeveloped coastlines, but rising seas

One thing clam farmers may not have to worry about, though, is being shut down by the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services for safety reasons relating to water quality. Coastal waters can become contaminated after large storms due to increased runoff and toxic spills from urban areas. But the stretch of coast where Cedar Key is located is relatively undeveloped compared to the rest of Florida. It has some of the most pristine water in the state, which is necessary for a thriving aquaculture industry. The shellfish, in turn, do their part to keep the water clean: Clams can filter up to 40 gallons of water a day, helping support aquatic ecosystems such as seagrass beds, which can also absorb vast quantities of carbon dioxide.   

“This part of Florida is one of the most undeveloped, natural, pristine coastlines that we have,” says Dr. Allen, “and it serves as a really good study site for understanding how Florida systems should function when they’re not heavily impacted by altered water flow and heavy use of fertilizer and lots of development and those kinds of things.”

The environment and aquaculture are closely linked on Cedar Key: What benefits one benefits the other. Residents have worked hard over the years to protect their water, fighting off local development proposals, voluntarily eliminating septic tanks on the island, and educating locals and visitors alike about the importance of healthy waters. 

But the island faces the risk of storms made increasingly powerful by climate change, as well as the quieter but no less dire threat of rising seas. The local sea level has risen almost 6 inches since 1992, and in 2020 Cedar Key recorded the fourth-highest rate of sea-level rise acceleration in the nation. 

Speaking to a local newspaper in 2017, City Commissioner Sue Colson said efforts to stave off the effects are important, but “we should ... not make the investment too high so that you don’t go broke fighting the inevitable.”

Stephanie Castellano

A thin film of mud, left from about a foot of floodwater, coats the floor of the Cedar Key Historical Society Museum, Aug. 31, 2023, in Cedar Key, Florida.

Focused now on maintaining their lives and livelihoods here, locals are keeping their perspective, including their sense of humor.

Sheltering a history

A block away from the biological station, at the Cedar Key Historical Society Museum, Executive Director Anna White Hodges had secured artifacts before the storm so that they stayed high and dry. On Thursday, she is already starting to move some items back into their cases.

“This is the historical museum,” she tells a television reporter peeking through the open front door, “and we’re making history today. We’ve just added another hurricane.”

Ms. Hodges proudly shows how little damage the museum’s interior suffered, slipping into a practiced tour guide mode as she moves through the rooms. She pauses to whip open a door, revealing a bathroom with an 1800s-era ship buoy perching on the toilet seat. 

“That was the only thing I could find that could hold it,” she says. “I’m like, ‘I hate doing this to you, buddy. But you’re going in.’”

As she moves through the rest of the museum, pointing out exhibits and artifacts that trace the island community’s many comebacks over the years from weather-related disasters, as well as environmental and economic setbacks, it becomes clear that Ms. Hodges has a theme on her mind.

“You know,” she says, “there’s one thing about Cedar Key history, and that is the word resilience.”

Another coup in Africa this week – this time in an oil-rich former French colony in West Africa, Gabon – follows the military takeover in Niger in late July that completed a “coup belt” stretching across six nations of the Sahel region from the Atlantic to the Red Sea.

The rash of coups over the past three years is raising fresh alarms in some quarters about waning Western influence across Africa – and about the prospects for democratic governance on a continent increasingly tempted by the siren of authoritarian rule.

The coup in Gabon was another harsh blow to France, already reeling from a succession of coups in former French African colonies that is calling into question its status as a global power worthy of a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council.

But the string of coups across the Sahel, culminating in the military takeover in Niger – until this summer the apple of the West’s eye in the sub-Saharan region – is also a setback for President Joe Biden’s foreign policy emphasis on promoting democracy. In some cases, the coups were fomented by Russia’s intent on supplanting Western powers in much of resource-rich Africa. But they all raise questions over who is winning between democracy and autocracy – what Mr. Biden called the century’s signature contest.

Amid the Western hand-wringing, some longtime Africa experts say the current moment suggests not so much the twilight of Western influence, but rather that for Africa, the West is no longer the only game in town.

“Yes, there is a ‘waning of Western influence’ in the sense of a decrease from where things were in the past, but what is really happening is that in Africa it’s no longer ‘our [the West’s] way or the highway,’” says J. Peter Pham, a special envoy for the Sahel in the Trump administration and now distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center in Washington.

“For African countries, there are alternatives now,” he adds, “and countries are going to respond to these alternatives ... based on their interests and their values.”

Mahamadou Hamidou/Reuters

Nigerien junta leaders wave while Nigeriens gather one month since a coup, in the capital Niamey, Niger, Aug. 26, 2023.

Others caution against equating declining influence with outrightly rejecting that influence.

“No question there is waning influence of the West; there is also a waning influence of Washington, but it’s not because of a rejection of Western values,” says Cameron Hudson, a former CIA Africa analyst who is now a senior associate in the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Africa program in Washington.

“What we have now is heightened competition among a growing number of countries to play a role in Africa, where two decades ago we [the West] were the only game in town. And it’s not just Russia and China,” he adds, “but the Turks, the Qataris, the Saudis, and others, all ready to build soccer stadiums and health clinics to get a foot in the door.”

The attraction for African countries is having choices and breaking a dependence on one power.

“The perspective that countries should stick with us is really colonial, but I’m hearing more all the time from Africans that they want the choice,” says Mr. Hudson, who was reached in Nigeria while on a swing through several countries. “They say, ‘We’ll choose the Americans for some things, but we’ll choose others for other things.’ And the attraction,” he adds, “is that they don’t have to have all the strings attached that can come with dealing with one” partner.

U.S. and France diverge

Indeed, one reason France is faring so poorly in Africa is that it has been unable to break its image as the despised colonial power in most of its former colonies. In the eyes of some, the coup in Gabon spells the end of a French sphere of influence in Africa.

“Gabon was the illustration of what was meant by ‘Françafrique,’ so a coup there is really the final nail in the coffin of French influence,” says Ambassador Pham.

Jacob Turcotte/Staff

Moreover, the tensions that surfaced between the United States and France in the days following the July 27 coup in Niger were a clear sign that Washington, after many decades of deference, is setting an independent course from Paris in Africa.

Even as it joined France in condemning the military takeover in Niger, the U.S. refrained from calling the action a “coup” – a step that would impose a set of actions against the putschists. The U.S. also sent the State Department’s No. 2 diplomat to Niger for talks with the coup leaders – a move French diplomats called “unwise.”

But that approach was just one piece of evidence that the U.S. realizes its interests and chances of diplomatic success are best served by publicly breaking free of its association with France, some experts say.

“What we’re seeing is that Washington is beginning to assert its own vision and perspective into the Sahel instead of simply letting the French lead,” says Mr. Hudson. “Official circles in Washington are finally recognizing what we all saw for a long time,” he adds, “that the French approach in Africa has been very paternalistic, that the rebellion against it has stretched across a broad swath of Africa – and that we are best served by cutting our own path.”

The U.S. has made significant investments in Niger, he says, from development programs and civil society initiatives to military assistance that includes a drone base and about 1,100 mostly special forces on the ground to help battle an Islamist insurgency. “We’re not ready despite the turn of events to cut ties and walk away from all of that,” he says.

Ambassador Pham notes that while the junta in Niger demanded the French ambassador’s departure, and wants 1,500 French troops out of the country – even as the French Embassy in the capital Niamey has been hit with angry demonstrations – the new U.S. ambassador has been allowed to take up official duties and the U.S. Embassy has been quiet.

“The door to the U.S. has not been closed, and I think we’re better off if we keep that door to dialogue open,” he says.

An attraction to military rule

Still, no one is arguing that democracy in the region has the wind in its sails.

“What we’re seeing play out right now is a concerted effort by some factions of the armed forces to assert the preferability of military rule – and to a degree that we haven’t seen in Africa for a quarter century,” says Daniel Eizenga, a research fellow at the National Defense University’s Africa Center for Strategic Studies in Washington. “There’s no getting around the fact that this growing willingness to assert a claim to governing by taking power is a step backwards for the continent.”

Mahamadou Hamidou/Reuters

Nigerien women hold Niger and Russian flags as people demonstrate by hitting and carrying kitchen utensils in support of the putschists in front of French Army headquarters, in Niamey, Niger, Aug. 30, 2023.

What worries Dr. Eizenga is how, in some cases, coup leaders who have no experience governing are finding themselves overwhelmed, especially by deteriorating security conditions, and are turning to outside actors such as Russia’s mercenary Wagner Group to come to the rescue.

He points to Mali, for example, which turned to Wagner after a coup in 2020 to help fight an Islamist insurgency, but which has only seen security conditions worsen.

What the succession of coups does suggest to some is not so much democracy’s demise – surveys of African people consistently show overwhelming support for democratic systems of governance, Dr. Eizenga points out – but instead that democratization is a long process that is more than simply holding elections and boasting an elected leader.

“I’m not arguing that coups are a good thing, but what I am saying is that when we quickly declare coups a backsliding from democracy we have to be able to honestly say that there was a functioning democracy in the first place,” Ambassador Pham says.

One reason the Niger coup was so shocking is that the country had indeed experienced some of the hallmarks of a stable democracy, including the peaceful transition of power from one president to another. But several other countries in the “coup belt” could hardly qualify as democracies, he says.

The hard lesson of Africa’s coups may be that democracy is more than voters displaying an ink-stained thumb, he says, and is only stable when it takes hold across institutions and meets the population’s needs.

“We were all too eager to declare success [with democratization] when coups became less frequent and even seemed they might be a thing of the past,” Ambassador Pham says. “But if we’re ever going to get to stabilized democracies, we’re going to have to stop and work patiently on the institution-building,” he says. “It’ll take time and resources and a willingness to invest in that for the long haul.”

Early Wednesday morning, Armel Mickala was hiding in a hut in the forest outside Gabon’s capital, Libreville. An opposition social media activist and local government candidate in last weekend’s elections, he had fled his home the night before on rumors that a friend of his had been arrested.

Isolated from his colleagues and the rest of the world since President Ali Bongo Ondimba cut off the internet in the wake of the vote, Mr. Mickala was anxiously waiting for news that would determine the future of his country. 

Then his phone rang. Unsurprisingly, Mr. Bongo – the man he had been denouncing for years to his online social media community of thousands of supporters – had been declared the winner of the presidential race.

Shortly afterward, gunshots rang through Libreville’s streets. Then another call came: The longtime president had been ousted; the military had taken power.

When hundreds of people poured into the streets, cheering and chanting, Mr. Mickala waited a little longer before trusting the crowds. “The coup saved my life,” he says. 

Mixed reactions

The Bongo family had ruled the oil-rich Central African nation of Gabon for more than five decades; Ali Bongo took over on the death of his father, Omar in 2009. Generations of Gabonese citizens have known no other rulers than the Bongo dynasty, widely accused of enriching themselves from the country’s vast resources, while most Gabonese struggle to make ends meet.

“We are supposed to be rich,” says Mr. Mickala, who worked at a market stall selling second-hand clothes before becoming a candidate in local elections last Saturday. “But while they drive around in sports cars like Cristiano Ronaldo, we live in poverty.” 

Yves Laurent/AP

An election billboard promoting Gabon President Ali Bongo Ondimba was defaced after the military coup that ousted him. The military accused him of rigging the elections that extended his family's 55-year hold on power.

In a post-coup statement, the military said Mr. Bongo and his entourage had been arrested for “serious betrayal of state institutions, massive embezzlement of public funds, [and] international financial embezzlement.”  He would be replaced as interim president by the coup leader, General Brice Oligui Nguema, the head of his presidential guard who is also his cousin.

Some experts warn that the takeover would not necessarily improve the lives of Gabonese citizens.

“Hunters will be hunters, and some may be nicer than others, but at the end of the day they will drag out the formal transition process,” cautions Nathaniel Powell, a West Africa expert at the Oxford Analytica consultancy. “They will keep the networks of corruption alive.”

International reaction to the coup, however, was not as scathing as it had been after the recent military coup in nearby Niger, which overthrew a democratically elected president.

“Military coups are not the solution, but we must not forget that just before this, Gabon held elections full of irregularities,” the European Union foreign policy chief, Joseph Borrell, said Thursday. “If I rig elections to take power, that is also an irregular way of getting power.”

In Gabon, the coup appeared to be widely popular, and the mood has been largely celebratory. A video of Mr. Bongo under house arrest, calling on his “friends” to “make noise” to secure his release, soon prompted playful remixes and parodies online. 

New hope?

Many young people in Gabon, as elsewhere on the continent, trust men in uniform to bring good governance to their countries. The country is the fourth-largest oil producer in sub-Saharan Africa, but 34% of its citizens live below the poverty line and nearly 40% of young Gabonese are unemployed, according to World Bank figures. Corruption is rife; Gabon ranks 136th on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index.

But young Gabonese, although disillusioned by their leaders clinging to power and failing to provide economic opportunities, have not given up hope. And a new wave of young politicians has emerged in recent years seeking improvements through democratic means.

Jacob Turcotte/Staff

Around 100 young people put themselves forward as candidates in the local and legislative elections that took place at the same time as the presidential race last weekend. Among them was Mr. Mickala, and also Jean Yeno, a 34-year-old accountant from Libreville who spent weeks knocking on doors and encouraging people to register to vote while campaigning for a seat in parliament and his municipality.

“We knew that we wouldn’t get the true results from this election, but not voting is giving up,” he says. “It’s our country, we have to do something to stop it from going down.”

Mr. Yeno says he was astonished and inspired when, during a study abroad program in South Africa, he saw his classmates organizing in political groups. On his return home, he became an activist himself, shocked by the number of his friends with university degrees who could only find work driving taxis or selling food on the side of the road.

“There are so many good things in this country,” he says. “We just lack good management.”

“Army is doing justice”

Although he has been pushing for democratic change in Gabon, Mr. Yeno says he is relieved about the outcome of the elections. Young people have been showing increasing levels of political engagement, he says, and “the army took power based on our engagement.” He hopes the coup leaders will soon hand power to the opposition, who reports suggest may in fact have won the vote, and is glad that violence was kept to a minimum. 

Mr. Yeno vividly recalls the deadly protests that broke out when Ali Bongo was declared the winner of presidential elections in 2016. “Maybe today I would have been the one to lose my life,” he says.

“Full satisfaction would be to see the person we have voted for [declared the new president], but for now the army is doing justice,” he adds.

Mr. Powell, the Oxford Analytica analyst, is not so sure. The fact that the coup leaders have shown no sign yet of reaching out to the opposition, he says, suggests that “this is a palace coup aiming to protect patronage networks and the functioning of a corrupt system. The people at the top have changed, but everything else is preserved.”

Mr. Mickala also has his doubts. “The military said the [election] results were wrong. But that means the right numbers must be somewhere,” he says. “Will they establish the true president or not?” 

​​I have stormed the castle of Bowser, the king of the Koopas, hundreds of times. When I was 6 or 7 years old, I raced past messages from mushroom-capped mascots who told me that the princess was in another castle, and I vanquished King Koopa for the first time.

As the years went by, I laid siege to different castles with Koopa kids and kin. My weapon? A gray controller with a familiar brand name: Nintendo.

It never occurred to me in my childhood that a fortress with Bowser’s likeness – much less the Mushroom Kingdom – would ever come to life. Then, last month, I walked through a pipe at Universal Studios Hollywood and before I could blink, I had warped to the dreamscape of my 6-year-old self.

Super Nintendo World is a paradise for nostalgia, with callbacks to various themes from the nearly 40-year history of Super Mario Bros. Some people make pilgrimages to Disney World or Comic-Con. For me, this was a homecoming. We visited close to the occasion of my 40th birthday, and though my wife’s participation was in the “good sport” category, she knew what she was getting into. Strewn and stacked around our home are mementos of my childhood – superhero figurines and video game decor. 

So when I learned there was an interactive power-up wristband that would let me gather coins like Mario himself, “punching” the question blocks scattered throughout Super Nintendo World, of course I bought it. I even took on my wife in the Koopa Troopa POWer Punch, which lets participants “send up” a Koopa turtle shell to knock out the unsuspecting foe.

But what does it mean for a 40-year-old to be excited about punching turtle shells? Was I getting in touch with my inner child or just refusing to grow up?

Chris Pizzello/AP

The new Universal Studios Hollywood attraction Super Nintendo World is pictured during a preview day, Feb. 16, 2023, in Universal City, California.

Much to my chagrin, my wife turned out to be rather good at the Koopa Troopa POWer Punch. One would think that my experience with Power Gloves and Power Pads would have given me an edge over someone who can’t tell Mario from Luigi, but unfortunately mastery of the video game did not appear to assure mastery over its real-life version.

I will admit the failure did not sit well with me, at first. I asked the POWer Punch attendee for another shot at the game. He respectfully asked me to go to the end of the line, which meant a 30-minute wait. I asked again, and then it hit me. This is a kid’s game. 

However, I am old enough to learn lessons, even from Super Nintendo World. Humility, as it turns out, is the beginning of community. Part of the camaraderie of video game communities is in failure, whether it’s an unbeatable dungeon in Zelda or the indomitable title character in Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out. But in that failure is also a bond – a bond that connects people through game controllers and over oceans.

That seemed to be the case in the real-life Nintendo World, too. Chased by California’s version of an angry sun, I found an oasis near the power-up bands, along with a kindred spirit who was also glad to see Mario come to life.

“Super Nintendo was the start for me,” explained Derick Malone. “This takes me back. I can feel the energy here.”

That energy can be revitalizing, no matter what your age. In my pursuit of greatness, I left my own princess in a nearby pipe similar to the one at the park’s entrance (she was pacing herself) and worked my way to the Piranha Plant Nap Mishap. This is arguably Super Nintendo World’s most difficult course, needing teammates to silence an assortment of alarm clocks before they elicit the fury of wild plant life.

Serendipitously, I happened upon three members of the visiting Bee family – Ziggy, Zenith, and (because it’s a video game park) Zelda. Quirky and longtime gamers (such as myself) are familiar with the Super Mario Galaxy series mushroom that turns Mario into – yep, you guessed it – a bee. So I knew I had found my crew.

I was proud to be an honorary member of their family that day, and like good workers, we covered our zones and quieted the clocks. As it turned out, the trio of Bees and their parents, Cristian and Roxy, were veterans in their own right.

“This is our second time here. ... We know what to do now,” explained Mr. Bee. “The first time, there’s awe. It’s eye-opening – amazing with all of the structure and how beautiful everything looks. The second time, we became professionals.”

Sometimes, it seems, that bond of gaming isn’t just about failure. It’s also about successfully mowing down Piranha Plants with new friends.

Super Nintendo World might be in Hollywood, but for some of us, the gaming world is a universe that spans generations. When my parents placed that gray box under the Christmas tree many moons ago, I never thought that it would be the start of a more than 30-year love affair.

For most of my gaming life, I’ve been trying to save a princess from the castle. On my trip to Super Nintendo World, I entered the castle with the princess (who was admittedly ready to pull the plug on the day’s adventures before I was). At Bowser’s Castle, the mischievous Bowser Jr. reminded me of my youngest kid, whose clever smirk is often the precursor to some shenanigans.

True, I am no longer that 6-year-old laying siege to a Koopa castle for the first time. But the park reminded me that it’s OK to still be a kid. Like Nintendo, a part of me is ageless. And I don’t see the game being over any time soon.

Reuters

Dilan Yeşilgöz-Zegerius, Dutch Minister of Justice and Security, speaks to the media in The Hague, Netherlands. Sept. 1.

Small in number – only 18 million people – the Dutch have been one of Ukraine’s biggest backers in the war against Russia. Last month, for example, they led Europe by promising to deliver dozens of their F-16 fighter jets to Kyiv. They have led in trying to hold Russia accountable for war crimes at the international courts based in the Netherlands. Soon they may lead by example on a more intangible front, countering one of Moscow’s justifications for the invasion: that Ukraine is bound to Russia by ethnic nationalism.

The Dutch example could be this: A former Kurdish refugee from Turkey, Dilan Yeşilgöz-Zegerius, is the main contender to become the next prime minister after an election on Nov. 22. Her family, from a minority in Turkey, fled repression in the 1980s when she was 8 years old.

As the current Dutch justice minister, she has pushed against politics “centered on where you were born.” Her favorite book is “Militant Democracy: The Limits of Democratic Tolerance” by Dutch professor Bastiaan Rijpkema. Her two degrees are in culture management.

If her People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy prevails in the election and Ms. Yeşilgöz-Zegerius leads a multiparty government coalition, it will reaffirm the European Union’s main reason for existence – to prevent ethnic-based wars like those of the 20th century by creating a continentwide culture of civic ideals, from equality to the independence of EU member states.

Once a seafaring colonial power, the Netherlands has this unique feature: “It has the promotion and the preservation of the rules-based international order inscribed in its constitution as a task for the government,” points out Timo Koster, a former Dutch diplomat and a fellow at the Atlantic Council. “The Dutch are simply compelled to act in a situation like this.”

One reason for the Dutch affinity with Ukraine is the tragedy the Netherlands’ own people suffered on July 17, 2014. A missile from Russian-backed forces in eastern Ukraine shot down a civilian airliner, Malaysia Airlines flight MH17. A majority of the 298 who died were Dutch.

That Russian aggression, says the outgoing Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, was the most important moment of his political life. After the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, “we have tried from the start to do whatever we could – and also nudging others to do more,” he said.

Now his party has chosen Ms. Yeşilgöz-Zegerius to succeed him. The Dutch may again help Europe reinforce the peace it has long enjoyed, a peace based on universal ideals rather than ethnic identities.