Why do you think our current (weak) stance will avoid it? A lot of people are really not convinced of that, including Gary but also many military experts.
https://twitter.com/benioff/status/549339156854214656?lang=g...
If the world is going to stick to a sanctions plan it needs to destroy all those pipelines now and sanction Russian Oil, shutting down only the parts of Russia's economy that don't reinforce Putin's power is only going to work if it has been done early enough and it has been over 2 decades, so probably it is not.
So, yes, I think that the current stance has a good chance of avoiding it. Much higher than the possibility of a nuclear war in case of NATO directly helping Ukraine.