Already, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is looking ahead to whenever a ceasefire might happen in Ukraine and has said that, if or when it does, he’d be happy to send troops in to keep the peace.  

It was too early for PM Christopher Luxon to confirm the Government's interest in sending troops to Ukraine once there’s a ceasefire during his regular appearance on the Mike Hosking Breakfast this morning.  

Christopher Luxon says he'd be open to it. But, despite the New Zealand military’s record of peacekeeping around the world, I hope we don’t get involved in Ukraine.   

I know that with Britain talking about peacekeeping already, they’ll be on the blower to Wellington at some point wanting us to join in.  

Just like they were last year about sending military personnel to help protect freight shipping in the Red Sea. You’ll remember how we said, “yep no problem” and six of our soldiers went off to try and put the Houthi militia in its place.  

And, as I said at the time, I got what the Prime Minister, the Foreign Affairs Minister, and the Defence Minister meant when they said it was about New Zealand doing its bit. I still didn’t agree with it, though.  

Which was based on previous experience.  

Essentially, when you get involved in a major military undertaking, you have no idea when it’s going to end.   

The patrols in the Red Sea. Who knows when they’re going to end? And who knows when any peacekeeping commitment in Ukraine would end?  

What’s more, Europe is flooded with military capacity. There is no shortage. And there will be no shortage of countries willing to join Britain in Ukraine when the war ends and when peacekeeping support is needed.  

Since 1948, New Zealand troops and personnel have been involved in more than 40 peacekeeping missions in places like the Middle East, the former Yugoslavia, Somalia and Iraq.  

But our brilliant peacekeeping record doesn’t mean we have to go running into Ukraine when the time comes.   

We need to be more picky about what peacekeeping work we get involved in because our military resources have become so depleted that we have to be realistic about what we can and can’t do.  

I also think —and I’m not being alarmist or anything here— but I think we should narrow our focus and look at pretty much limiting our military’s offshore activities to the Pacific region.  

I can’t imagine the government —which likes to talk about New Zealand doing its bit globally— being too fussed with that idea.  

But I think we need to refine our approach and stop saying ‘yes’ to requests from other countries every time the phone rings.  

Which is why if British prime minister Keir Starmer or US president Donald Trump or whoever is running Australia by the time a ceasefire in Ukraine happens, phones Wellington, I hope we have the fortitude to say we’d like to, but we can’t.  

We can’t because we don't have the military capacity. We can’t because we’ve learned from past experience that, once you’re involved in these things, it can be very hard to get out. And we can’t, because our military needs to focus on stuff closer to home. 

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