Are we really closer to a war with Russia than in the Cold War?

I always worry when a very senior military chief, either serving or retiring, starts warning about war with Russia or whoever. Not because I think he knows more about what's really goinig on in some part of the world and is therefore in possession of some alarming intelligence which he feels we ought to know about. But because very senior military chiefs tend to think of nothing else and fail to see the broader picture. Thus, General Sir Nick Carter, outgoing British chief of the defence staff, the top dog at the Ministry of Defence, has given a warning that an "accidental" war with Russia is now more likely than at any time durring the Cold War era. An accidental war? There is no such thing as an accidental war, not if it involves Russia anyway. Everything Putin does is calculated and calculated again. If he wants a war he will engineer it. If he doesn't want a war he will make sure that if he is being pushy and aggressive it will only go so far; in other words, he won't take that fatal step which will invite/provoke Nato to answer back militarily. So he won't invade Ukraine with 100,000 troops and tanks and armoured vehicles and rockets because he knows that would provoke the US into action. The US has come up with that old and familiar phrase about how America's commitment to Ukraine is "iron clad". These two words are overused by Washington but I assume they have been selected as the go-to phrase because they are meant to imply that the US would rush to Ukraine's aid with all the firepower necessary if Russian troops invaded the country. It's not a straightforward calculation for Putin because the US and Nato didn't exactly rush to help when Russia invaded two provinces in Georgia in 2008 and then annexed Crimea by force in 2014. But that iron-clad phrase for Ukraine probably means what it says. Anyway it would be a helluva risk for Putin. And the last thing he wants is to have a war with Nato. And lose. So no way is there going to be an "accidental" war with Russia over Ukraine. I don't know what General Sir Nick Carter has in mind but what he said in an interview with Times Radio was the usual old stuff spoken by an outgoing defence chief who wants to warn the world that it is in a more dangerous position now that ever before. Well thanks for that. But give Putin his due. He knows better than most that going to war is a serious business and has to be worked out tactically, strategically and purposefully. Nothing would be accidental. Nor would it be accidental on Nato's side. Nato has had more experience of fighting wars than Russia in the last few decades, and has no intention of fighting one with Russia unless Putin decides to invade Ukraine or Latvia or Lithuania or Estonia or all of them at once. But he won't do that, and he certainly won't do it by mistake. So the Carter Doctrine doesn't sound that impressive or realistic. It's Carter talking without thinking of what Putin might be thinking. The bigger international picture.