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Notes -
I think the US foreign policy establishment is actually doing a pretty good job of threading the needle and avoiding the risk of nuclear escalation. It is possible that Putin will resort to a tactical nuke, but (1) I suspect it'll be less effective than the conventional wisdom has it, and may actually deflate some of the mystique around nuclear weapons and lower the odds that they're used in the future, (2) I'm sure we'll have a very sharp response but will avoid retaliating with nuclear weapons of our own, and if NATO is not directly kinetic on (actual) Russian territory and Ukraine constrains its kinetics only to military resources on Russian territory, then Russia will have every incentive not to use nukes outside of Ukraine, and (3) breaking the nuclear taboo will make it even harder for Russia to come back from its isolation even after this has all blown over.
Sure, a fireball in Ukraine would suck, and the mountains of rubble and shattered bones in Ukraine already sucks, but neither really damages US interests.
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