EXERCISED OVER EXERCISES: The United States and South Korea have agreed to cancel annual spring joint military exercises in support of President Trump’s effort to persuade North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to give up his nuclear and ballistic missile arsenals.

RAND PAUL TEES UP TRUMP’S 1ST VETO: It’s not clear yet when the Senate will vote on the House-passed measure to block President Trump’s national emergency declaration, but it now appears it will get the four Republican votes it needs to be sent to president’s desk for his promised veto.

The fourth vote against the move to fund more border wall comes from Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who tweeted last night, “Every single Republican I know decried President Obama’s use of executive power to legislate. We were right then. But the only way to be an honest officeholder is to stand up for the same principles no matter who is in power.”

Paul joins Republican senators Susan Collins, Maine, Lisa Murkowski, Alaska, and Thom Tillis, N.C., in breaking ranks to send a message of disapproval to Trump. It would take improbable two-thirds votes in both chambers to override a presidential veto, but the vote puts on record the will of Congress, which could factor into the legal battle over whether Trump can use the National Emergencies Act to to spend money on a project the legislative branch has specifically refuse to authorize.

TRUMP IN ‘HORRIBLE POSITION’ OVER OTTO: At CPAC Saturday, Trump tried to explain why he seemed willing to give Kim Jong Un a pass on the inhumane treatment of American college student Otto Warmbier, who died from injuries sustained while imprisoned in North Korea.

“I’m in such a horrible position, because in one way I have to negotiate. In the other way, I love Mr. and Mrs. Warmbier, and I love Otto,” Trump said. “And it’s a very, very delicate balance. He was a special young man. And to see what happened was so bad. It was so bad.”

“When he says, ‘I’m going to take him at his word,’ it doesn’t mean that he accepts it as reality, it means that he accepts that’s what Kim Jong Un said,” is how national security adviser John Bolton explained it on Fox News Sunday.

“You know, what he’s trying to convey is that he’s got a difficult line to walk to negotiate with Kim Jong Un and at the same time demand what I think North Korea would find very much in its own best interests — give us a complete accounting of who was responsible for what happened to Otto Warmbier,” Bolton said. “That would go a long way to improving relations.”

DUST OFF THAT MONROE DOCTRINE: On CNN, Bolton sent us scrambling for our high school history books to brush up on the Monroe Doctrine, “a principle of U.S. policy, originated by President James Monroe in 1823, that any intervention by external powers in the politics of the Americas is a potentially hostile act against the U.S.,” according to the dictionary.

Bolton was defending what he called “a new experiment in public diplomacy,” in which he’s sent 150 tweets calling for the peaceful transition of power in Venezuela from Nicolas Maduro to Juan Guaido.

“In this administration, we’re not afraid to use the phrase ‘Monroe Doctrine.’ This is a country in our hemisphere. It’s been the objective of American presidents going back to Ronald Reagan to have a completely democratic hemisphere,” said Bolton. “Part of the problem in Venezuela is the heavy Cuban presence, 20,000 to 25,000 Cuban security officials, by reports that have been in the public. This is the sort of thing that we find unacceptable.”

BERNIE VOWS TO CUT DEFENSE: As he kicked off his 2020 presidential campaign in Brooklyn, Independent senator Bernie Sanders railed against what President Dwight D. Eisenhower famously called the “military-industrial complex” and vowed an end to the Trump military buildup.

“Today, we say to the military-industrial complex that we will not continue to spend $700 billion a year on the military, more than the top 10 nations combined,” said Sanders. “We’re going to invest in affordable housing. We’re going to invest in public education. And we’re going to invest in our crumbling infrastructure. No more major, major investments in never-ending wars.”

At his CPAC address, Trump also complained about endless wars, while touting his $700 and $716 billion Pentagon budgets. “Obama was spending much less but our military was being depleted. He was fighting in endless wars; they’d never end.” Trump said.

McMASTER WARNING ON AFGHANISTAN: Former national security adviser retired Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, who is now chairman of the board of advisers of Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ new Center on Military and Political Power, is interviewed in a podcast out this morning.

In the interview, McMaster tells Cliff May that Trump’s policy shift in Afghanistan could come back to bite him. “If you remember in the president’s speech in 2017, he said well maybe at some point in the future we might talk with the Taliban. And so what’s happened in the recent months is a bit of a reversal on that and I think it’s going to hamstring us and make it much more difficult to get to a sustainable outcome,” he said.

“I think what we have to do though is recognize what is at stake. What is at stake is that you could have in Afghanistan the collapse of governance in huge parts of the country, which would then give the Taliban what really we saw ISIS have: control of large swaths of territory that gives them the resources; that gives them the revenue in connection with the opium trade; and what gives them the land to train and plan and prepare. And you know what? This isn’t an academic scenario, this is what resulted in the mass murder of over 3,000 Americans and others on September 11, 2001.”

‘RAISIN’ CAINE IN IRAQ: During his extended extemporaneous stemwinder at CPAC, Trump told the story of his Christmastime foray to Iraq to visit U.S. troops. Trump portrayed the trip as a spur-of-the-moment impulse that struck him as he was rattling around alone in a White House that was basically deserted because of the holiday and the partial government shutdown.

“I’m in the White House and I was lonely,” he told the crowd. “I said, ‘Let’s go to Iraq!’” Trump recounted how he sat with the pilots of Air Force One in the cockpit of his massive 747 and was amazed they could land in the dark with will all the lights out for security reasons. Trump suggested they pull up and make another approach because he couldn’t see the runway.

“Captain, there’s no runway,” Trump recalled telling the pilot. “There’s practically no lights. These are little pin spots. And I said, ‘Think of this: We spent $7 trillion in the Middle East and we can’t land with the lights on.’”

On the ground in Iraq, Trump said he met “generals he didn’t know” who were right out of central casting. “General one, general two, general three. I mean, these generals — there’s no person in Hollywood that could play the role. These guys are like perfect people,” Trump said as he recounted his conversation with one Air Force commander.

“I said, ‘What’s your name?’ ‘Sir, my name is Raisin.’ What the hell kind of a name? I said, ‘Raisin, like the fruit?’ He goes, ‘Yes, sir, Raisin.’ ‘What’s your last name?’ ‘Caine. Raisin Caine.’ I said, ‘You got to be kidding me.’ It’s true. Raisin Caine.”

YOU DON’T GET TO PICK YOUR CALL SIGN:  If the commander in chief were a little more familiar with the military he would have seens the wings on his chest and realized the one-star general was a pilot. And “Raisin” was his call sign, not his name. A little checking reveals that “Raisin” Caine is Brig. Gen. John D. Caine, a former F-16 driver who currently serves as both the deputy commanding general of U.S. Central Command’s Special Operation Component and the deployed deputy commanding general of Operation Inherent Resolve in Iraq. And he usually goes by Dan, I’m told.

Generally speaking, your fellow pilots pick a call sign for you, and then you are stuck with it. Raisin Caine put me in mind of another F-16 pilot, retired Gen. Lloyd Newton, who was the first African-American pilot of the Air Force Thunderbirds. Call sign, yes, you guessed it: “Fig.”

AND THEN THERE’S CHAOS: You may recall that Jim Mattis, while not a pilot, was given a call sign, “Chaos,” which I was told was in recognition of the Marine commander’s habit of making cogent observations about military plans when he was a junior officer. ‘Chaos’ was actually an acronym for the Colonel Has Another Outstanding Suggestion.

Curiously, Trump in his CPAC storytelling took credit for tagging Mattis with the nickname “Mad Dog,” something Mattis blamed on reporters who had covered him years ago in Iraq.

“I just made [Raisin Caine] a big star. Just like I did with Mattis when I said, ‘We’re going to give you a new nickname, because ‘Chaos’ is not a good nickname.’ So we changed his name. Called him ‘Mad Dog.’ But it wasn’t working too well. Mad Dog wasn’t working too well.”

Maybe Trump thinks he really did come up with the name. After all Trump told the Economist in 2017 that he came up with the phrase “prime the pump.” “Have you heard that expression used before?” he asked the Economist, before explaining, “I haven’t heard it. … I came up with it a couple of days ago and I thought it was good.”

OR MAYBE HE WAS JOKING: Trump complained at CPAC that the news media couldn’t seem to tell when he was joking or being sarcastic. “Because with the fake news, if you tell a joke, if you’re sarcastic, if you’re having fun with the audience, if you’re on live television with millions of people and 25,000 people in an arena, and if you say something like, ‘Russia, please, if you can, get us Hillary Clinton‘s emails. Please, Russia, please. Please get us the emails. Please!”

“So everybody is having a good time. I’m laughing, we’re all having fun. And then that fake CNN and others say, ‘He asked Russia to go get the emails. Horrible.’”

THE RUNDOWN

Washington Post: Mike Pence: It’s time for Congress to establish the Space Force

Defense News: Space Force To Cost $2 Billion, Include 15,000 Personnel In First Five Years

Washington Examiner: Pompeo reassures Philippines that US will defend it if China attacks

USA Today: Exclusive: Pompeo on the failed North Korea talks, Otto Warmbier and his own trip to Iowa

Reuters: China Says Defense Spending Rise To Be ‘Reasonable And Appropriate’

Military Times: DoD Is Rethinking What Defines A Major Aviation Accident

Bloomberg: Pentagon Wants 78 Lockheed F-35s in 2020, Six Fewer Than Planned

Reuters: Washington Wants To Know If Pakistan Used U.S.-Built Jets To Down Indian Warplane

Wall Street Journal: Weapon Makers Declare War on Drones

Washington Post: Assad wants to be back in the Arab fold. The U.S. stands in the way.

San Diego Union-Tribune: Contractor’s Death on USS Roosevelt Prompts Questions, Investigation

The Blade: Army veteran detained in South Korea now headed home

The News Herald: Tyndall Air Force Base Disposed of Ammunition Damaged by Hurricane Michael

Reuters: In call with Pakistan’s Khan, UK’s May urges action on terrorist groups

USNI News: Navy Issues Draft RFP for FFG(X) Next-Generation Frigate

Baltimore Sun: Oldest Naval Academy Graduate Dies at 104