DIVIDE AND CONQUER: One by one they came to the podium in the White House briefing room yesterday to sound an alarm about the clear and present danger — from Russia.

HAPPENING TODAY: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is in Singapore for a series of ministerial meetings centered around the annual ASEAN Regional Forum, and he told reporters traveling with him that Turkey is “on notice that the clock had run out and it was time for [American] pastor [Andrew] Brunson to be returned,” according to the AP.

Pompeo met with his Turkish counterpart, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, on the sidelines of the security conference. “I hope they’ll see this for what it is: a demonstration that we’re very serious,” Pompeo told reporters aboard his plane as he flew to Singapore from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

This week, the Trump administration imposed sanctions on Turkey’s justice and interior ministers over the case, after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan reneged on a deal to free the pastor in return for Trump arranging the release of a Turkish prisoner being held by Israel.

A WAYS TO GO: In his comments to reporters on his plane, Pompeo admitted that North Korea still has yet to show it is fully committed to denuclearization. “To the extent they are behaving in a manner inconsistent with that, they are in violation of one or both of the U.N. Security Council resolutions, we can see we still have a ways to go to achieve the ultimate outcome we’re looking for,” Pompeo said.

PEN PALS: Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un have continued to communicate since their historic summit in Singapore, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders has confirmed.

Trump thanked Kim in an early Thursday tweet for his “nice letter” accompanying the remains of U.S. troops who died in the Korean War. Vice President Mike Pence received the remains of missing U.S. troops Wednesday in Hawaii. “I look forward to seeing you soon!” Trump wrote.

“He did receive a letter; I believe he received it on August 1st,” Sanders said at yesterday’s briefing. “There is not a second meeting that is currently locked in or finalized, certainly open to that discussion, but there isn’t meeting planned. We have responded to Chairman Kim’s letter, the president has, and that letter will be delivered shortly.”

REMAINS HELD BY NORTH KOREA? The Pentagon does not know how many sets of U.S. war remains North Korea might still be holding after it turned over 55 boxes of bone fragments and other items, said Kelly McKeague, the director of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency.

“We are not sure why the number, we’re also not sure how many they do possess. We do know that over the years, whether it is an agricultural project, a road being built or what have you, the likelihood of recovering remains is fairly high,” McKeague told reporters at the Pentagon. “Again, it’s one [question] that none of us have been able to get a definitive answer to is how many they do possess.”

Trump said North Korea would return 200 sets of remains last month following his summit with Kim in Singapore. Military cargo planes repatriated the 55 metal boxes of human remains and war artifacts such as a canteen, uniform buttons and a dog tag to Hawaii on Wednesday.

Initial inspections show the human remains are consistent with American remains turned over by the North in the past, but it is unclear how many people they might represent, said John Byrd, a chief scientist and anthropologist at DPAA. DNA analysis will be done in the coming weeks. “But I can’t tell you that we expect an easy identification in a week, nor can I tell you that they will all be done in five years,” Byrd said.

THE SINGLE DOG TAG: The officials also confirmed a single dog tag from an American service member was sent along with the remains, and two family members of that member had been informed, and will be given the tag at a meeting next week.

“The Army Casualty Office is the one that notifies the families,” McKeague said. “And they make it very clear upfront that there is no way that we even associate that this dog tag belongs to any of the remains in those 55 cases that the North Koreans turned over.”

CHINA THWARTED IN DJIBOUTI PORT BATTLE: A London arbitration court has ruled against Djibouti in a land dispute that the U.S. feared could have handed China a key military supply port in Africa. Instead, the port will stay in private hands for now. The Djiboutian government, which is deeply indebted to China, unlawfully seized the port of Doraleh on its coast in February from the commercial owner DP World, a panel of judges concluded.

The port provides access to Camp Lemonnier, where four major U.S. military commands operate and the bulk of the 6,500 U.S. troops in Africa are based.

DRAWDOWN IN AFRICA: U.S. Africa Command is confirming that it is considering significantly reducing the number of special operations forces in Africa, a story first reported by CNN.

“This force optimization review supports the National Defense Strategy’s direction to prioritize great power competition and is not a result of any single activity in Africa,” Maj. Karl Wiest, an AFRICOM spokesman, said in an email this morning. “We are committed to ensuring the end result will be largely in line with what is seen now: a mission-focused, adaptable, agile force with placement and access on the continent dedicated to assisting our African and Western partners.

“Our commitment to stability in Africa is strong, and any force optimization recommendations will prioritize ensuring we maintain mission effectiveness to the greatest extent possible,” Wiest said.

HERITAGE DOC ON ARMY FUTURES COMMAND: The Army is likely to be successful in getting new tech and hardware to its forces with the newly created Army Futures Command in Austin, Texas, but how successful will depend on some important details, according to a new policy paper by Tom Spoehr, the director of the Center for National Defense at the Heritage Foundation. Among the recommendations is developing more experienced officers for the task. “Army modernization efforts have been challenged in the past by key leaders whose short tenures frustrated the ability to develop the deep understanding necessary to make experienced judgments in a complex area,” Spoehr writes.

More than half of the leaders of Army cross-functional teams under the new command have rotated to new positions since they were announced in October. “Because of the value of accumulated expertise in an area in which most Army officers lack experience, key individuals, such as the leaders of CFTs and AFC, should remain in their positions for no less than two to three years — and optimally longer,” according to Spoehr. Congress will also need to be consistent in funding Army Futures Command efforts.

“Some of what are popularly perceived by the press and others as Army modernization ‘failures’ were instead fact-of-life changes brought about as a direct result of massive budget cuts imposed by the Budget Control Act and the actions of the previous administration,” Spoehr writes.

DRILL TRIGGERS INCIDENT: Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio confirmed that security forces and the fire department on Thursday responded to reports of an active shooter in the base’s hospital building after a training simulation was mistaken for a real-world scenario.

“This reported incident occurred during a normal, scheduled installation exercise which included an Active Shooter scenario at separate location in Area A,” the base posted on its Twitter account. “Upon investigation, it was determined that the incident at the MTF was not an actual Active Shooter incident.”

The base praised its first responders for reacting “with the level of professionalism and urgency required” of the situation. “In an attempt to breech [sic] a door that was locked, a security forces member discharged his firearm to open the door and continue the sweep of the facility,” the base added on Twitter.

NOW IT’S $200 BILLION: At that rally in Pennsylvania last night, Trump boasted that it took him only an hour to persuade allies at last week’s NATO summit to pay an additional $200 billion over the next few years and that the money will go toward protecting Europe from Russia.

“We’ve been defending Europe and they are not paying their bills. So I went in and said, ‘Folks, you’ve got to pay up. You’re delinquent!'” Trump said. “They will be paying $200 billion. It took me one hour, but it was a rough hour.”

It’s a story that keeps getting better with the retelling, and Trump continues to conflate money paid to NATO with money the member nations spend on their own defense. After the summit, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that since Trump began complaining about the issue last year, more than $40 billion additional revenues have been committed by countries who have six more years to meet a 2014 pledge to spend 2 percent of GDP on their own defense.

It appears Trump may be extrapolating how much more money will be added to defense budgets as more countries meet the commitment made in Wales in 2014.

THE RUNDOWN

Daily Beast: Inside the Secret Taliban Talks to End America’s Longest War

New York Times: At War: How the Defense Department Identifies the Remains of Our War Dead

Military Times: Pentagon braces for massive change to officer promotions

Defense One: Cargo Bases in Space: Air Force General Wants Them Within a Decade

Business Insider: The US ‘must not let this bill become law’: Beijing blasts defense bill designed to counter China

Defense News: Meet the new head of the Pentagon’s strategic tech office

Foreign Policy: China’s AI Giants Can’t Say No to the Party

Task and Purpose: Neo-Nazi Lance Corporal Is Now An Ex-Marine

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