Dinner at the Edge of a Fractured World

I sit by the window, ready to type into my mobile phone, watching the world outside blur into streaks of gray. It’s a strange day, one that feels unmoored, like the ground itself has shifted beneath us. The Twitter newsfeed on my mobile glows with headlines I can barely process:

"America backing the Kremlin today".  It’s like we are on a vessel lost at sea.  

The Five Eyes  - that fragile pact of trust, that invisible thread tying us across oceans and continents lies in ruins. Exterminated, not by some foreign hand, but by the United States itself. A self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, deep and deliberate.

I sip my glass of water, the bitterness mirroring the thought. We can no longer share defence, security, and intelligence with the White House.

The words feel heavy, final, like a door slamming shut on a room we once called a home. Outside, the snow taps against the glass, skiers are loading equipment in their cars; later I feel the quiet rhythm of walking in the snow to match the unease settling in my chest.

Canada can’t stand alone in this.

I trace circles in my mind, imagining new lifelines stretching across the American wreckage. A partnership with the European Union, a bold pivot to the east - shared intelligence and security gathering satellites launched through the European Space Agency, orbiting high above this fractured world we once were so sure about.

A new constellation of eyes to replace the Americans we’ve lost, linking Ottawa to Brussels in a network forged from necessity. And then there’s CANZUK - Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the UK - a quieter alliance, but no less vital. Economic security woven through trade and mutual strength, a bulwark against the chaos, binding us as family who still share the old ties of history and grit.

The waitress passes by, oblivious, refilling water I won’t drink. I wonder if she feels it too? The tremor of a world tilting off its axis. Like the timeline has been broken somehow. Or maybe it’s just me, here at this table, tracing the end of something in my mind I thought would last, and the fragile dark outlines of what might come next: satellites in the sky, ships crossing familiar seas, a new security & intelligence roadmap drawn from old roots. How can I go skating on the canal in Ottawa later tonight with these thoughts weighing heavy on the soul?

As my mind leaves Ukraine momentarily, it rushes to thoughts of Taiwan. Can the global community muster the strength to setup a Pacific Ocean version of NATO? What about Canada’s very existence? We must refocus our efforts on defending our Canadian Arctic from would be aggressors.

It’s a new world, we have woken up in an alternate universe. You could say we are having dinner at the edge of a fractured world.