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THREAD: Trump's antics before meeting Putin are a case study in how not to conduct relations w Russia. As @peterbakernyt points out, Trump loves keeping us in the dark about why he feels the need to keep meeting w Putin. “It’s none of your business.” 1/ nyti.ms/2KH3qr6 
Unfortunately, a big part of the problem is that he keeps treating his own team--and even the Russians—the same way. That approach flies in the face of all best practices that have gone into staging US presidential-level interactions with the Kremlin for decades. 2/
It also inadvertently reveals Trump doesn’t actually have a Russia policy beyond all the happy talk about “getting along with Putin.” Trump has never made a convincing case about why Russia is so important to his foreign policy, which just feeds suspicions about his motives. 3/
Of course, for 2+,years some sophisticated folks have insisted Trump’s bizarre fixation on Putin doesn’t really matter because the “real” policy is so much tougher (arms for Ukraine, secret cyber ops vs the Russian power grid, etc). I just don’t buy it. Nor should you. 4/
.@peterbakernyt carefully picks that argument apart by explaining John Bolton’s moves to undermine what little remains of the US-Russian arms control regime. The fact Bolton hates arms control is not news, of course. 5/
But what this shows us is that there is no comprehensive policy. Rather, it’s a hodgepodge of efforts by different parts of the Trump team doing their own thing and protecting their pet rocks. 6/
Venezuela is another example. For months, Bolton/Pompeo have claimed Moscow stymied their go-for-broke attempt to oust Maduro. But that doesn’t hold up. Russian actions have been annoying but def not game-changers. Why make Moscow look like it’s 10 feet tall in Latin America? 7/
On Ukraine, Trump has made abundantly clear he doesn’t care about the conflict. Meanwhile, he revels in trashing allies like Germany/EU, suggesting they're bigger threats than Russia. Yet US alliances are our single most effective tool in countering Russian misbehavior. 8/
Iran is going to be perhaps an even bigger challenge. Bolton held a bizarre (and counter-productive) meeting in Jerusalem w the Israeli & Russian nat'l security advisers. That needlessly elevated Russia to the same stature as the US in the Middle East. Not exactly a good idea. 9/
It also gave the Russians a great platform to trash the US. They accused Trump of intentionally pushing the region toward war and making up facts about the drone shootdown & oil tanker incidents. Other Russian officials keep bringing up Bush’s bogus case for war in Iraq. 10/
I wrote about all of these issues at greater length in Politico yesterday: politico.com/magazine/story… END/
