If this thing turns really, really bloody - especially for civilians as we are starting to witness firsthand - then all the expert and wannabe expert certainties start to fall by the wayside. That's how full-scale wars have started time and again, regardless of what guardrails were in place beforehand. The 'nos' are probably right, but there were plenty, if not most, of the experts who felt the same way before other wars.
The big difference today, of course, is the nuclear option. But we almost went to nuclear war in 1962 and didn't mainly because the Kennedys favored diplomacy and a blockade over military action pressed for by LeMay and others in the Pentagon. A President Nixon may have very well taken another path. Today we have a president like Kennedy but Russia has a leader who may very well be unhinged, as opposed to a Khrushchev who was similar to Kennedy in preferring diplomacy while his generals wanted war.
Emotions are running high and could get even higher, turning into a war fever that includes NATO reversing its stance, even as that seems very unlikely now.
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