A few points about INF. The US is making a big mistake, of course - I just don't see what it could possibly gain from this. Not to mention that arms control is unlikely to recover any time soon - it will eventually, but it will get much worse before it might get better
It's easy to pin it on Bolton and Trump, but they are just executioners - others made it much easier to kill the treaty and, in fact, made it almost inevitable. Russia should certainly go first on that list, but it was not alone.
To begin, Obama administration seriously mishandled this. Who came up with that "brilliant" idea to accuse Russians without telling them what the accusation is about? How was that supposed to help start a conversation? Obama seemed to worry more about fending off GOP attacks
Then, the expert community, including people who genuinely worried about consequences, uncritically accepted US govt line about "blatant violation." Nobody really asked what that violation is and what makes it "blatant." Once this narrative took hold, INF treaty was doomed
Part of this was that the discussion often took almost racist turns, like in "Russians lie, it's what they do." I wouldn't (and don't) myself trust anything that comes out of the Kremlin, but in quite a few cases I felt like a line was crossed
Was there a violation? Most certainly there was. But was it so grave or "blatant" or militarily significant that it warranted wrecking what's left of arms control? I have my very serious doubts. But these were questions that virtually nobody asked. Don't blame Bolton for that
