Strategical World wide planning is way outside my wee little mind, but what you say makes sense...it's always been just a matter of time, not if.Totally agree. I want no part of it.
However,
They are 2 nuclear powers that have a history of conflict. It's not a stretch to say that there are very plausible scenarios of escalation that can lead to a nuclear exchange.
And I can't help but try to connect the dots that this is another front in WW3 that is starting to go hot. I don't think it's a coincidence that all these conflicts are seemingly starting. Wait for Taiwan and the western Pacific to go hot, wait for Iran, etc.
Nothing happens in a vacuum anymore. When there is an imbalance somewhere on the globe it's felt elsewhere. Other nations are now seeking to exploit a vulnerability or opportunity.
I view it from the lens of history, what would people have said in 1935, 1937, 1939, 1941. All those random independent events (Spanish civil war, Japan invading Manchuria, Germany taking the sudatenland, Denmark, Poland ) etc... you get the idea. All those events increased in velocity and severity and became increasingly connected. I think it's entirely plausible and perhaps even likely to make an argument that we're seeing the battle lines of a multi polar ww3 forming. Very interesting times indeed.