The war in Ukraine could force Canada to shed its self-image as a peacekeeper

Over the past three decades or more, Canada has suffered from a deep identity crisis whenever it has been confronted with the messy, brutal foreign wars raging in far-flung parts of this troubled globe.

The overwhelming brutality of Russia's invasion of Ukraine has forced the Liberal government in recent weeks to confront some thorny questions. What does a peacekeeping nation do when there's no peace to keep?

And what do you do when faced with a nuclear-armed adversary whose default reflex is to wage war?

For decades, Canada has clung to a perception of itself as a peacekeeping nation. Experts say the war of aggression launched by President Vladimir Putin marks a return to the kind of conflicts not seen since the end of the Second World War.

That uncomfortable conundrum will come into even sharper focus later this week.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau travels to Brussels to meet with other NATO leaders on Thursday. There they'll be asked to consider some decidedly non-peacekeeping scenarios in support of keeping Ukraine in the war — with an eye to confronting Russia over the long-term.

Their aim will be to keep the West out of the war in Ukraine and avoid a direct confrontation with Russia. It's as much an exercise in organizing deterrence as it is about putting some steel into the spine of NATO allies.

It may be generous to say the Liberal government has been reluctant to embrace anything that looks like a hard-edged military solution. Canada was among the last countries to agree to ship arms to Ukraine, despite months of consideration.

The Trudeau government has steadfastly refused to indicate clearly whether it will raise defence spending in response to the threat, preferring mushy platitudes to clear targets.

It has not committed firmly to purchasing equipment and covering critical gaps in the Canadian military inventory in the near term. It also has presented economic sanctions as the ultimate weapon for defeating Russia.

During Trudeau's recent tour of European capitals, he gave a speech in Berlin that neatly captured his government's reluctance.

"I think for a lot of citizens, they said, well, Russia just invaded militarily Ukraine, surely if you want to stand for Ukrainians, the response has to be military," Trudeau said.

"Well, actually, we have more and better tools than that now. The power we have that we have built up over the past 75 years of unprecedented peace and stability around the world means that we have the tools to damage the Putin regime far more effectively than we ever could with tanks and missiles."

There are strains of old arguments in Trudeau's remarks.