CANADA PERSPECTIVE

CBC News leads with a detail that stings: Hegseth told George to retire 'effective immediately.' Those two words in direct quotation are not incidental -- it's the language of termination, not transition. Canada watches this purge with the specific anxiety of a country that shares air defense command with the United States through NORAD and whose armed forces are structurally interoperable with the Pentagon. When the US Army chief of staff is ousted without official reason during wartime, every Canadian officer working in liaison with Washington wonders who will be making decisions tomorrow. Ottawa doesn't comment publicly, but the Globe and Mail's reporting -- noting that Reuters obtained confirmation from 'two defense officials and a source familiar with the matter' -- suggests institutional unease. Canada knows this vulnerability: in 2003, Ottawa refused to follow Washington into Iraq precisely because the American decision-making process seemed erratic.