JSTARS, JUST LIKE AOL DIAL-UP: Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson went on the offensive again Tuesday as the service wrangles with Congress over what the service sees as an unneeded multibillion-dollar replacement of the E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System, or JSTARS, aircraft fleet. Wilson compared the JSTARS technology first deployed in 1991 during the waning days of the Cold War to the first clunky cell phones and America Online dial-up Internet service.

HAPPENING TODAY: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is set to meet in New York today with Kim Jong Un’s personal representative to discuss the nuclear summit, which is technically canceled, but increasingly seems on track to happen in Singapore June 12. Pompeo will be meeting with Kim Yong Chol, the 72-year-old chief negotiator who is the highest-ranking North Korean official to visit the U.S. since 2000.

“We’re not going to get into all of the nitty-gritty and conduct that here from this room. I can just tell you that the secretary looks forward to his meetings,” said State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert, who said Pompeo will likely return to Washington tomorrow. “This will be the secretary’s third meeting with Kim Yong Chol. They’ve had, obviously, very deep conversations where they’ve talked about a lot of detail about what the United States’ expectations are.”

Pompeo’s meeting comes as other U.S. officials met for five hours with North Korea representatives in the border village of Panmunjom today, and other advance teams are in Singapore to work out an agenda for the summit. “I think it’s pretty impressive” Nauert said. “We have three simultaneous meetings taking place on this matter to talk about the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.” Asked if the Singapore summit was back on, Nauert said, “That is what we’re planning for, but we’ll see what happens.”

On Air Force One, press secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters the planning is progressing as though it’s happening as originally scheduled. “If it takes place on June 12, we’re going to be prepared,” Sanders said. “If it for some reason takes place at a later date, we’re going to be prepared for that as well.”

BUT CIA BELIEVES THEY WON’T DENUKE: An assessment from the Central Intelligence Agency indicates that North Korea is not planning to rid itself of nuclear weapons in the near future, but may open a hamburger franchise as an amicable gesture to the U.S., according to a new report. “Everybody knows they are not going to denuclearize,” an intelligence official who viewed the report said of the rogue regime, per NBC News.

MEET THE OTHER KIM: Kim Yong Chol, who is described as the “right-hand man” to leader Kim Jong Un, is North Korea’s former military intelligence chief and current vice chairman of the ruling party’s central committee.

More on his bio from the folks at 38 North, which is now part of the Stimson Center:

• “As vice chairman, Kim is also a member of the State Affairs Commission, the North Korean government’s supreme power and policymaking organization, a member of the WPK Political Bureau and a member of the WPK Central Military Commission.
• “Kim’s ‘day job’ in the DPRK system is director of the WPK United Front Department. In that position, he is the lead official for the party’s ‘Third Office Complex,’ a campus of civilian intelligence departments and research institutes focused on the North’s relationship with South Korea.
• “Like his predecessor (who was killed in a December 2015 traffic accident), Kim’s portfolio transcends the DPRK’s relationship with South Korea and has included the North’s relationship and interactions with China and, now, the United States.
• “Kim has also exhibited a dark sense of humor, which has not always been understood by his foreign counterparts. For instance, at a South Korean concert in 2018, Kim introduced himself saying ‘Hi. I’m the man you blame for sinking the Cheonan.’ At another interaction he rejected Seoul’s proposals and told his South Korean interlocutor, ‘do you have another briefcase? Surely you have another briefcase of proposals with you.’ ”

THORNBERRY IN NEW DELHI: Amid his push to rename U.S. Pacific Command, House Armed Services Chairman Rep. Mac Thornberry is in India this week with a congressional delegation meeting with senior defense and foreign policy officials. “The US-India relationship is a natural partnership between two Indo-Pacific partners. We share interests and concerns, including transnational terrorism and China’s aggressive behavior in the region and around the world,” Thornberry said in a statement about the meetings. “America is rebuilding and reforming our military to deter these adversaries and reassure friends like India, but more can be done.”

Thornberry’s proposal for a rechristened U.S. Indo-Pacific Command is a symbol of the committee’s deepening interest in ally India and its regional role in countering the growing influence of China, as well as North Korea and Russia. The delegation visit, which included Armed Services members Reps. Vicky Hartzler and Carol Shea-Porter, comes after the House passed a raft of new policies proposed by the committee in the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act. The NDAA adds to the Asia-Pacific Stability Initiative in last year’s bill by further bolstering the U.S. military presence from the U.S. Pacific Coast to the Indian Ocean. It also calls for increased missile defense exercises and four-nation military exercises with regional allies such as India.

CHANGE OF PACIFIC COMMAND: Today at Camp H.M. Smith in Hawaii, Adm. Harry Harris will pass command of PACOM to Adm. Philip Davidson. Davidson comes to the job from the Navy’s Fleet Forces Command in Norfolk, Va. Harris was set to become U.S. ambassador to Australia, but now he is nominated to go to South Korea, where his experience and skills are in more demand.  

The change of command ceremony will be attended by both Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford.

‘STEADY DRUMBEAT’: Mattis, who is on his way to a national security conference in Singapore known as the “Shangri-La Dialogue,” says U.S. ships are maintaining a “steady drumbeat” of freedom-of-navigation operations in response to China’s militarization of man-made islands in the South China Sea.

“We are going out of our way to cooperate with Pacific nations, that’s the way we do business in the world,” Mattis told reporters traveling with him, according to AP. “But we are also going to confront what we believe is out of step with international law, out of step with international tribunals that have spoken on the issue.”

Two Navy ships — the destroyer Higgins and cruiser Antietam — conducted the “routine” exercise Sunday near the Paracel Islands, prompting China to dispatch two warships to issue warnings to leave the area.

Mattis noted that “only one country” seems to be bothered by the “routine activities.” In a statement yesterday the Navy called the Chinese response “safe but unprofessional.”

HELPING NORTH KOREA: China may be helping North Korea circumvent international oil sanctions designed to pressure the regime into dismantling its nuclear weapons program, Japanese officials suggested Tuesday.

INHOFE IN ITALY: Sen. James Inhofe, a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and possible successor to Sen. John McCain, is overseas this week with China and Russia in mind. He visited with U.S. Africa Command officials and the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team at an Army garrison in Vicenza, Italy, to talk about their readiness needs.

“Across Africa, we are seeing the rise in Islamic extremism that threatens our allies, our strategic partners and American values. But that is just the beginning, as both China and Russia are making strategic inroads across the continent that threaten American allies as well,” said Inhofe, who has been focused on the African continent for years.  

RUSSIA REVERSE-ENGINEERING TOMAHAWKS? A Russian defense company claims it is developing new jamming technology using recovered pieces of U.S. Tomahawk cruise missiles used in strikes on Syria in April, the Moscow Times is reporting. “Knowing all these parameters, we’ll be able to more effectively jam these cruise missiles at all stages of their combat use,” Vladimir Mikheyev, the deputy head of Radio-Electronic Technologies Concern, or KRET, reportedly told a state-run news agency.

The company said it plans to develop the electronic warfare systems within three years after it analyzed components recovered by Russia, which is backing Syria in its long civil war. The U.S. launched 66 of the missiles as part of a joint attack with the U.K. and France on Syria’s chemical weapons facilities on April 13. The cruise missiles are manufactured by defense contractor Raytheon and allow precision strikes on enemy targets up to 1,000 miles away.

SYRIA IN CHARGE: Syria, the same country accused by the international community of murdering its own citizens with banned chemical weapons, is temporarily leading the Conference on Disarmament, a U.N. body based in Geneva that negotiates international arms-control agreements. It’s Syria’s turn to assume the organization’s rotating, four-week presidency, from now until June 22.

“We are outraged at the Syrian regime’s blatant disregard for human life, its serial violations of and contempt for its international obligations and its audaciousness in assuming the presidency of an international body committed to advancing disarmament and nonproliferation,” said spokeswoman Nauert at the State Department yesterday. “Syria lacks the credibility to assume the presidency. During the next four weeks, we will limit our participation during C.D. plenaries. However, we will still represent and protect the interests of the United States.”

LOOSE LIPS: Trump gushed during a closed-door fundraiser in New York last week over the success of recent U.S. military action taken against Russian mercenaries in Syria, despite the details of the encounter still being classified, a new report in Politico claims.

According to a source “briefed on the president’s remarks,” Trump praised the February performance of American F/A-18 fighter pilots for allegedly taking out 100 to 300 attacking Russian mercenaries.

THE RUNDOWN

Defense One: US Air Force Is Waiting a Year for Parts That It Could 3D-Print

Bloomberg: Bolton Adds Loyalists to National Security Council Staff

Army Times: Why Poland wants a permanent US military base, and is willing to pay $2 billion for it

Reuters: At Beijing security fair, an arms race for surveillance tech

Breaking Defense: SASC Doubles Down On R&D Budget, Pushing New Tech The Pentagon Missed

Defense News: Here are the top 5 issues on the docket for NATO’s 2018 summit

Fox News: Drone slayer: Polaris MRZR ATVs, Chevy trucks, armed with new anti-drone weapon

UPI: Army contracts American Ordnance for mortar munitions

Breaking Defense: Wittman: We Need An Atlantic Rebalance

Task & Purpose: The Navy Dodged More Terrible Headlines With McCain Skipper’s Guilty Plea