The original treaty was advantageous, essentially, to the United States–for the reasons already mentioned. We were having political issues keeping weapons like this deployed, with the writing on the wall that most European countries weren’t going to allow new deployments anyway, or at the very least there would be political problems associated with it. By getting rid of them we basically moved off the table a type of weapons where we had long term disadvantages versus Russia since we were going to have political issues maintaining deployments in Europe and Russia was not.
Meanwhile we had a good advantage in submarine launched missiles that meant from a practical sense, we weren’t actually losing meaningful nuclear capacity in theater, but Russia was. (When the treaty was signed we decommissioned like 800 missiles and they 1800, sort of showing the disparity.)
It’s not real surprise that a treaty that at least theoretically was more beneficial to the United States, Russia proceeded to more or less violate repeatedly. Arguably this treaty has had little practical meaning since 2007 when Putin publicly declared that it “does not suit Russia’s interests.” While he didn’t formally withdraw at that time, Russia hasn’t been committed to compliance since then.
From a PR perspective, us withdrawing is probably slightly bad for us and slightly good for Russia, although I doubt it has any lasting effect that is meaningful in any real sense. It’ll be played up a lot on RT and other Russian propaganda outfits, but that’s hardly meaningful. If I had to “guess” why some of the more somber military top brass have favored this move over the past couple of years, is it probably relates more to our interests in the Pacific as others have noted, than it does anything that might go on in Europe.
From a practical effect Russia isn’t going to start some massive nuclear arms build up, and probably not even a massive missile build up. Especially in terms of a nuclear build up, I think it’s probably hard to overstate how much Russia’s capacities have diminished versus the peak of the Soviet Union. In terms of expert workers/engineers, in terms of financial ability to properly maintain a large nuclear arsenal etc. It’s hard to conclude that Putin hasn’t been highly effective as Russia’s leader, he’s found ways to punch above his weight. But the reality is the country he leads is in long run military decline, and while Russia has done a wonderful job with smoke and mirrors to hide this fact–it’s really almost a third rate military power now compared to the United States or China, and that trend isn’t likely to change.
As a sign of how weak Russia is, something I pointed out when they annexed Crimea, is that to continue social welfare policies in Crimea (which they have committed to do), the province represents a net drain on the country to the tune of about 10% of the Russian annual budget. The fact that tiny Crimea costs Russia so much means that from a practical standpoint holding Crimea actually makes Russia weaker. The only way it really makes sense is if you factor in how it personally benefits Vladimir Putin’s political hold on the country to be able to wave the flag and have a victory.
When it comes to America’s interests–certainly we shouldn’t not take Russia seriously. Even in decline Russia has formidable capabilities in a lot of areas, and has shown themselves to be decently proficient at utilizing them in a way that often costs them little but reaps major rewards. I’m simply saying that the rumblings I’ve heard in many liberal quarters, about a return to a major arms race ala the Cold War between Russia and the United States just will not happen, I think most people don’t actually understand the scale of that arms race and how Russia has literally no capability to go back to that level of production. America has the money to do so, but couldn’t easily produce at that level again either, there’s a lot of infrastructure involved that has been scaled back over the years and would take years to build back up.