There's nothing like antagonizing a nuclear power in a fit of pique over gays being allowed to serve in the military. The Republican obstruction of and posturing over START Treaty ratification is not amusing Moscow:
WASHINGTON — Russia warned the United States Senate on Monday not to rewrite the new arms control treaty being debated on Capitol Hill as American lawmakers clashed about the politics of ratification in the waning days of the Congressional session....
“I can only underscore that the strategic nuclear arms treaty, worked out on the strict basis of parity, in our view fully answers to the national interests of Russia and the United States,” Sergey V. Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, told the Interfax news agency on Monday. “It cannot be opened up and become the subject of new negotiations.”
As the Times rather delicately suggests, Republican opposition to the treaty has little to do with the treaty itself, and everything to do with domestic politics. "The treaty’s fate appeared to be entangled by unrelated factors, including an acrimonious deadlock over a spending bill, anger among some Republicans over passage of legislation ending the ban on gay men and lesbians serving openly in the military, and the widespread view that approval of the treaty would help rejuvenate a weakened president."
All the deals with the nihilists this president decides to make won't end the basic fact that their primary goal is his political destruction. They're more than willing to take the rest of the country down in the process.