If we "do whatever it takes to avoid nuclear war", we'll have given in to nuclear blackmail. If that happens lots of nations are going to do their best to produce their own nukes (fission bombs aren't all that hard). They won't have the resources to do virtual testing, so the test ban treaty goes out the window - and once we have dozens of nuclear armed nations, we're guaranteeing nuclear war for our grandkids.

So we stand up to the bully or we have 'peace for our time' (but probably not our kids' time, definitely not for their kids).

I'd agree that we need to do whatever it takes - we just disagree on both time horizon and the 'whatever'.