Re INF treaty. Which ironically has less than two months to live. Finishes August 1st.
I don’t foresee any effects on the Cold War as stated above.
The effects on the post Cold War are massive though.
The INF treaty basically ended work on new ballistic missiles for the US for nearly 3 decades. Especially since there were no new ICBM in development in that time. Without an INF, that work continues.
In OTL the three main sources of new missiles have been China, NKor and the Sub Continent. The latter two will continue regardless, they have no nexus with the INF.
On the other hand, a US with large land based missile arsenal will absolutely affect Chinese calculations. OTL one of the reasons the Chinese have built thousands of short and medium range missiles is that the US does not have them. If this is not the case they might’ve emphasized them less. After the Taiwan Straits crises, the carrier building lobby of the Central Military Commission might have won out over the missile lobby (which the path was chosen as it was cheaper)
Might we see Chinese flattops coming online in the new millennium?
I think it also butterflies away missile defence projects, lots of which were make-work in the post Cold War. OTL, they have some capabilities against 1950’s standard ballistic missiles. If the technology that are coming online recently, like Maneuvering RV, hypersonic glide vehicles and MIRV on non ICBM missiles; all of which were in development in the 80’s, and which were abandoned post Cold War, start emerging in the 1990’s, missile defense is seen as unfeasible.