You’re thinking is excellent, but still has a few assumptions embedded into it that need to be teased apart. “Putin doesn’t care” is not the same as “Putin’s strategy is not deterred”. Assumptions of confront Putin militarily now or later is part of that assumption. Putin wants to destroy Ukraine so it cannot become a NATO partner, he removes the problem entirely by destroying the country. My concern with your post is that it assumed a March into Germany would naturally come to follow strategically, and it doesn’t. And since it doesn’t, so neither does a NATO direct confrontation come to follow.