If Russia pays no price for seizing Crimea (and possibly more) from Ukraine, what price do you think the Chinese will have to pay for taking Taiwan? Or just some tiny miserable rocks in the East China Sea or South China Sea?
Nukes and a UN Security Council veto are wonderful things to have.
UPDATE: Very related thoughts.
UPDATE: And let me remind you of another lesson I brought up: How will President Obama discourage nuclear proliferation and promote nuclear disarmament (for which he won a Nobel Peace Prize in anticipation of that feat) if Ukraine--which gave up its nuclear weapons in exchange for 1994 agreement by the US, Britain, and Russia (!) to respect Ukraine's territorial integrity--loses chunks of its terrain to a nuclear-armed aggressor?