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The current course of Western (and Eastern) democracies sponsoring Ukraine in absolutely humiliating Russia is the safe, nuclear-war-minimizing strategy:
If NATO directly (tanks-on-the-ground) intervenes on behalf of Ukraine, then it risks initiating a direct Russia-NATO conflict. This is much more fraught with nuclear risk than the current status quo.
If NATO does nothing (because of nuclear threats), then Ukraine loses the war. Russia is validated in its belief that forceful territorial expansion works, and is empowered to attempt further expansion. (Future Russian wars of expansion have the same risks of nuclear escalation as the Ukraine war). If, as Peter Zeihan argues, the geopolitical goal of Russia is to secure its borders in the face of declining population, then we can predict that Russia will keep pursuing wars of expansion until it can secure the Polish and the Bessoarabian Gaps. Thus the result of letting Ukraine lose the war is likely a direct Russia-NATO conflict, just delayed a few years. Again, the nuclear risk is higher than in a Russia-Ukraine war.
If Russia uses nuclear weapons, NATO does not have the option of non-retaliation. To do nothing would legitimize other nuclear powers in the use of their nuclear arsenals to secure territory: North Korea against South Korea, China against Taiwan, Israel against Iran, ...
However, if Russia, facing defeat, resorts to (tactical) nuclear weapons, there are non-nuclear retaliation options on the table. In particular, UN sanctions and trade embargoes become almost guaranteed. (I hear Putin and the Russian oligarchs envy the life of the Kims and their generals in Pyeongyang.) Russian shipping is very vulnerable to NATO submarines, etc...
The current status quo, with NATO selling arms to Ukraine, avoids all these risks, so long as Ukraine doesn't push toward Moscow. There is a long history of Russia and the US arming partisans in (proxy) war, and arms sales are nothing new. To skip over the relevant historical examples of the Korean, Vietnam, and Russia-Afghani conflicts, just a few years ago there was a Russian mercenary battalion which was decimated when attempting to assault a US outpost in Syria, and despite the conflict being much more direct, the situation didn't escalate.
Future Russian wars of expansion - where?
Into NATO countries like Romania or Estonia? Well they actually are under a nuclear umbrella and have Article 5. There's a key difference between NATO countries and non-NATO countries. That's the entire point of NATO. Furthermore, NATO countries have not been fighting a low-intensity war with a large Russian minority for several years now!
In the Caucasus, Georgia? Unlike nearly everyone else Georgia does have a vaguely Russian minority that they've been embroiled in a struggle with, in South Ossetia. But we've also established that the West does not care about Georgia enough to fight a proxy war there.
Into Central Asia? Well they already share Central Asia with China anyway.
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Where/how did you hear this, and why would they be envious? Haven't they, prior to the invasion, maintained more trade with the west than NK?
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