READY TO WALK: President Trump is counting on his well-honed skills as a negotiator to keep him from being played when he meets with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, including employing the time-honored tactic of walking away if things are not working out. “If the meeting, when I’m there, is not fruitful, I will respectfully leave the meeting,” Trump said at yesterday’s Mar-a-Lago news conference with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. In fact, Trump said, if he doesn’t have a good feeling going in, he won’t even go. “If we don’t think it’s going to be successful … we won’t have it.”

HAPPENING TODAY: Before he heads back to Washington, Trump will take a short flight over to Naval Air Station Key West, where he will visit Joint Interagency Task Force-South. There he’s scheduled to get briefings from military officials from both the U.S. Southern and Northern Commands.

NAVY AND MARINE CORPS TESTIFY: The Senate Armed Services Committee has a defense budget hearing on the posture of the Navy Department at 9:30 a.m. with testimony from Navy Secretary Richard Spencer, Adm. John Richardson, the chief of naval operations, and Gen. Robert Neller, the Marine Corps commandant.

THORNBERRY CUTS GET REALITY CHECK: A debate over Rep. Mac Thornberry’s newly unveiled proposal to slash $25 billion in Pentagon support services quickly veered into opposition and thorny political issues on Wednesday. Rep. Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, warned such cuts could cause “serious damage” and that eliminating seven defense agencies could endanger thousands of jobs. “What these people do is not irrelevant. There are a number of portions in the so-called Fourth Estate that are essential to assisting the warfighter and making sure that they are ready for the fight,” Smith said.

Thornberry wants a mandatory 25 percent reduction to 28 Pentagon agencies and activities, the so-called Fourth Estate, which account for $100 billion annually. But that level of savings likely will not pan out, said Peter Levine, who is the Pentagon’s former deputy chief management officer. “I think it’s important not to have unreasonable expectations as we look at the Fourth Estate … a huge part of the Fourth Estate budget goes to the defense intelligence agencies, the Missile Defense Agency, and the U.S. Special Operations Command,” Levine said.

BACK TO BRAC: The Fourth Estate pot of money also funds the military’s worldwide system of schools and grocery stores, as well as technology programs such as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Levine said those have been “considered to be off the table for budget reductions” in the past. Meanwhile, Thornberry’s proposal to eliminate seven agencies would cover only 2 percent of the 25 percent goal, said Preston Dunlap, a national security analysis mission area executive at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.

Dunlap said bigger reductions could require targeting military schools and commissaries with cuts or eliminating unneeded military facilities as part of the Base Realignment and Closure program, which have all been political non-starters on Capitol Hill. “I think Congress will have to take a careful look at whether they are open to issues like … what has typically been off the table with BRACs or education or commissaries because you have to get agencies that are large to achieve that kind of savings,” he said.

LCS PRESSURE MOUNTS: The Navy’s plan to purchase just one littoral combat ship would disadvantage and “irreversibly harm” the shipyard in Wisconsin where Lockheed Martin builds its Freedom-class variant. That is according to a letter sent this week to Spencer by a bipartisan group of 13 House and Senate lawmakers includes House Speaker Paul Ryan. “We understand that one-quarter of the Marinette shipyard workforce would need to be let go,” the lawmakers wrote. “To make matters worse, this devastating layoff would happen at the very moment the shipyard should be hiring more workers to successfully compete for the frigate.”

The letter puts new pressure on the Navy to buy more hulls in 2019 as the two shipyards that build it in Wisconsin and Alabama compete over the single purchase. Analysts warn that without more purchases, one of the shipyards could disappear as the Navy ends the LCS program and transitions to the new frigate. The Independence variant of the LCS is built by the Austal USA shipyard in Mobile, Ala.

ONE AMAZING PILOT: Tammie Jo Shults, the Southwest pilot who landed her plane in Philadelphia after an engine caught fire Tuesday, was one of the first group of women to become fighter pilots in the Navy, the service confirmed on Wednesday.

Not long after the dramatic landing, in which one woman was partially sucked out of the cabin and later died, news reports began citing archived articles that said Shults was the first woman to pilot the F/A-18 Hornet.

The official Navy statement stopped short of the claim, but confirmed that she was among the first in the service to fly tactical aircraft. “In regards to the question on whether she was the first female Navy fighter pilot we can confirm that LCDR Shults was among the first cohort of women pilots to transition to tactical aircraft,” Lt. Christina Helenaleka Sears, a Navy spokeswoman, said in a statement.

FASTER FOREIGN SALES: In that joint presser with Abe, Trump said he wants to fast-track foreign military sales, a many-layered and rigorous process to prevent sensitive technology from falling into the wrong hands.

“The United States also supports Japan’s efforts to improve its defense capabilities, and we’re exploring ways to expedite the sale of American military equipment to Japan through the Foreign Military Sales program,” Trump said.

“We’ve stepped up our effort not only with respect to Japan, but other allies, that when they order military equipment from us, we will get it taken care of and they will get their equipment rapidly. It would be, in some cases, years before orders would take place because of bureaucracy with Department of Defense, State Department. We are short-circuiting that. It’s now going to be a matter of days. If they’re our allies, we are going to help them get this very important, great military equipment. And nobody — nobody — makes it like the United States.  It’s the best in the world by far.”

THE GREAT DINO PUPPET CAPER: The Tennessee Air National Guard colonel who led a re-enlistment ceremony in which a senior noncommissioned officer recited her oath using a dinosaur puppet has been demoted and retired, Air Force Times reports. The video of the ceremony went viral and was widely mocked on social media. The re-enlistee, Master Sgt. Robin Brown, has also lost her public affairs job, and may face other administrative actions.

“I am absolutely embarrassed that a senior officer and a senior NCO took such liberties with a time-honored military tradition,” wrote Army Maj. Gen. Terry Haston, the adjutant general for the Tennessee National Guard, on Facebook. “Not taking this oath solemnly and with the utmost respect is firmly against the traditions and sanctity of our military family and will not be tolerated.”

WAIT JUST A DOGGONE MINUTE: The folks over at Task & Purpose mocked the mockers, calling the punishments “the worst military overreaction since the Faber College ROTC pledge pin incident of 1962. “The Tennessee National Guard’s adjutant general announced Wednesday that everyone involved in a recent viral video of a kooky reenlistment ceremony would have their careers wrecked, because that’s how you honor our military traditions, dammit.”

The article included links to other lighthearted re-enlistment ceremonies, including images of service members re-enlisting as Imperial stormtroopers; at gunpoint; underwater; in gas chambers; in GameStops; or with rigged-up explosions behind them.

FIGHTING THE LAST WAR: David Barno and Nora Bensahel have a must-read analysis in War on the Rocks that examines deeply held convictions that they say could lead to catastrophe in the next war. The authors argue the U.S. military needs to develop alternative plans to avoid devastating battlefield losses and possible defeat based on the following 10 dubious assumptions:

1. The U.S. military still knows how to fight a major war.
2. The United States can protect its ground forces from air attack.
3. The U.S. Air Force will be able to fight effectively from contested bases.
4. Stealthy aircraft will remain stealthy.
5. Aircraft carriers can be both effective and survivable.
6. U.S. submarines will remain undetectable.
7. Amphibious operations remain viable.
8. The U.S. military can protect its air and sea logistics pipelines.
9. Advanced U.S. weapons systems will operate effectively under wartime conditions.
10. The U.S. military can keep its secrets.

WHERE’S THE CARRIER? The USS Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group is now in 6th Fleet, according to U.S. European Command. That means the carrier and its accompanying ships are in the area that covers the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean Sea “as part of a routine deployment in support of NATO allies, European and African partner nations, coalition partners, and U.S. national security interests in Europe and Africa,” according to a EUCOM release.

THE RUNDOWN

Bloomberg: Lockheed Resists $119 Million in Fixes for Its $406 Billion F-35

New York Times: Gunmen Shot at U.N. Team Near Site of Reported Chemical Attack, Official Says

Defense One: Pompeo’s Secret Korea Trip May Not Save His Nomination, But It Could Save Trump’s Summit

Roll Call: White House Presses Vulnerable Dems on Pompeo Nomination

Military Times: Where will US Army Futures Command go? Lawmakers are lobbying to host it.

Task and Purpose: Full Metal Meltdown: Matthew Modine’s Ridiculous Duffel Blog Rant

Defense News: With proposed cuts, what happens to DISA’s mission?

Foreign Policy: When Diplomacy Disappears

Army Times: Senators want to know if U.S. military advisers in Yemen are helping or hurting the conflict

Marine Corps Times: Marines boost lethality of Hornets with high precision kill munitions