Eli Lake, Columnist

Trump’s New Nuclear Budget Is Bad News for Russia

Putin has the most to lose from an upgraded U.S. nuclear arsenal.

February 11, 2020 at 12:30 PM UTC

Eli Lake is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering national security and foreign policy. He was the senior national security correspondent for the Daily Beast and covered national security and intelligence for the Washington Times, the New York Sun and UPI.

A message to Putin.
Photographer: USAF/Getty Images North America

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Since Donald Trump began his presidency, Democrats have painted him as an appeaser and possibly a pawn of Russia’s President Vladimir Putin. At least in his rhetoric, from his supine flattery of Putin in Helsinki to his public rants about NATO allies, Trump has given them some fodder.

Nonetheless, the Trump administration has also pursued a foreign policy that has been hostile to Putin’s interests. From his decisions in 2017 and 2018 to bomb Russia’s client in Syria, to the State Department campaign to get allies to recognize Juan Guaido as the interim president of Venezuela, many of Trump’s policies have opposed Russian objectives, not aided them.