AN EMBARRASSMENT OF RICHES: It’s an enviable yet daunting problem: How can the Pentagon make sure a lot of money doesn’t slosh over the sides as the services race to spend a full-year’s budget increase of $80 billion in six months? At a House Appropriations subcommittee meeting yesterday, New Jersey Republican Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen indicated the problem will be addressed with increased flexibility to spend the money into the next fiscal year, which begins Oct 1. That’s all predicated on the assumption Congress will in fact enact the bipartisan budget deal it forged last month by the March 23 deadline.

HAPPENING TODAY: Two senior South Korean officials are on their way to Washington to brief U.S. officials on their meeting this week with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. The South Korea government says Chung Eui-yong, the top security adviser to President Moon Jae-in and intelligence chief Suh Hoon will relay a message from Kim to U.S. officials.

“We cannot reveal everything to the media but we do have additional views of North Korea we will relay to the United States when we visit the U.S.,” Chung told reporters in Seoul, according to the South Korean Yonhap News Agency.

It’s not clear who Chung will meet with, whether it will be President Trump, or members of his national security team such as Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is in Ethiopia on an Africa trip. Yesterday in response to a reporter’s question at the top of a meeting with the Estonian Defense Minister Jüri Luik, Mattis said, “Obviously we’re cautiously optimistic that there is some forward progress here, but we’ve been optimistic before so we’re going to have to watch actions and see if they match words.”

Likewise, AP reports this morning that Tillerson called the movement “potentially positive symbols” from North Korea, but “we’re a long ways from negotiations.”

LESSONS LEARNED: The last person to actually conclude a deal with North Korea has some advice for the next negotiations. Robert Gallucci, who negotiated the 1994 “agreed framework” that failed to stop North Korea’s nuclear program but did delay it for almost a decade says the key to any future deal is verification. “Ronald Reagan was wrong, it’s not ‘trust but verify,’ ” Gallucci said, “it’s ‘don’t trust and therefore verify.’ ” And he says just because Kim Jong Un is untrustworthy doesn’t mean you can’t strike a bargain. “You can make a good deal, one that advances your national security and that of your allies, even if the other side cheats,” he said.

Gallucci, who is now the chairman of the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins, told me the lessons he learned from his experience 23 years ago dealing with Kim Jong Un’s father, and how they can apply to today’s possible negotiations.

AND THEN THERE’S THE MILITARY OPTION: Gallucci said the Trump administration is right to keep the full range of pressure on the North. “The thing that this administration I think really doesn’t want to do is start taking the pressure off, taking its foot off the gas pedal on sanctions, on exercises, things we know the North wants us to do before we get some real performance.” On Tuesday, Vice President Mike Pence reiterated that the U.S. campaign of “maximum pressure” will not change unless North Korea takes “credible, verifiable, and concrete steps toward denuclearization.”

Arizona Republican Sen. Jeff Flake fears that in the end only military action will force Pyongyang to forsake its nukes. “It’s going to be very difficult, short of going in with a military strike,” Flake told the Washington Examiner, admitting, “That’s just not a good option.”

NATO/EUCOM COMMANDER TESTIFIES: The Senate Armed Services Committee hears testimony at 9:30 a.m. from Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, the head of U.S. European Command and the supreme allied commander of NATO. Expect many questions about Russian influence and aggression in the region and the U.S. response.

SPENCER DEFENDS LCS BUY: The Navy’s budget plan to buy just one littoral combat ship is “not optimal” but good enough, Spencer said when he was questioned on Capitol Hill Wednesday. “We believe that is a good sustaining rate for both yards as we move into what is going to be a very robust competition for the frigate,” Spencer told the House Appropriations Committee. Last year, the Navy requested a single LCS, but in an unusual move spurred by the White House it added another of the ship one day after its budget request was submitted. After House and Senate wrangling, Congress eventually approved three ships for this year. Now, its 2019 purchase plans are again drawing attention.

“Both LCS shipbuilders have publicly stated that they do not believe that [with] one ship in the fiscal year 2019 budget there’s enough work to sustain the industrial base and hot production lines going into the frigate competitions,” said Rep. Martha Roby, an Alabama Republican who sits on the appropriations committee. The Navy has continued to buy LCS hulls in order to keep a Lockheed Martin shipyard in Wisconsin and Austal USA shipyard in Alabama humming so they can be ready to build the ship’s planned successor, a new Navy frigate.

IT’S STILL A MAD WORLD: The Cold War-era doctrine of mutually assured destruction is not going anywhere despite Russia’s claims of new and provocative doomsday weapons, said Gen. John Hyten, the head of U.S. Strategic Command. “I don’t think we have to worry about that [changing] for at least a decade. I think the capabilities that we have, that we will operate for the next decade, will allow us to maintain the basis of nuclear deterrence,” Hyten said in testimony to the House Armed Services Committee. Mutually assured destruction, or MAD, is the theory that no nuclear power will launch an attack if it would result in obliteration of both sides. The doctrine underpinned the decades-long nuclear standoff between the U.S. and former Soviet Union.

Russian President Vladimir Putin unveiled a stable of new weapons last week and claimed Russia has developed a submarine drone capable of carrying a nuclear payload and a hypersonic nuclear missile that can evade any U.S. defenses. Analysts are skeptical. But Hyten said the real nuclear risk is a miscalculation by Russia or China, which is also a nuclear power bent on developing new weapons to challenge the U.S.

Still, the MAD doctrine and the U.S. advantage cannot be taken for granted, Hyten warned the House. Current weapons systems are rapidly aging, meaning a heightened risk of nuclear war could be just over the horizon. “Ten or 12 years from now, all the capabilities that I operate today will be reaching end of life. We can’t allow that to happen without modernizing and replacing them,” Hyten said.

TARIFF CARVE-OUTS: Trump’s proposed tariffs on steel and aluminum imports will include “carve-outs” for some countries with whom trade provides a national security benefit to the U.S., White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said yesterday. “There are potential carve-outs for Mexico and Canada based on national security, and possibly other countries as well,” Sanders told reporters at the White House.

Trump announced last week that his administration would apply a 25 percent tariff to all imported steel and a 10 percent tariff to all imported aluminum, regardless of origin, in order to protect American steel and aluminum producers. The president has since suggested Canada and Mexico could earn exemptions to the duties by conceding to more favorable terms for the North American Free Trade Agreement, which his administration has sought to renegotiate.

ZELLO, THE TERRORISTS’ TOOL: You may have never heard of Zello, a push-to-talk app that can be used on smartphones, tablets and PCs, but a new report suggests the instant communication app that turns a smartphone into a two-way radio in which multiple users can hear everyone else is becoming a terrorist tool. “Islamic State (ISIS) supporters and other jihadis from around the world are using the Austin, Texas-based communication application Zello for planning and executing terrorist attacks in the U.S., the U.K., European countries, Turkey, and elsewhere around the world,” said the Middle East Media Research Institute. “On January 30, 2018, it was reported that the perpetrator of the April 2017 Stockholm truck attack had used Zello to communicate with other jihadis immediately after he drove the vehicle into crowds on a main street, killing five people and injuring 14. In March 2017, a Texas-based ISIS recruiter who moderated a Zello channel, instructed followers to kill infidels, and personally approved terror attacks was indicted by a federal grand jury,” the report says.

The Zello website states that the app’s “advanced encryption ensures all communications are secure.” It adds: “Services may disclose personally identifiable information when it’s required to comply with law enforcement requests or subpoenas when you violate the Terms of Service.”

THE RUNDOWN

New York Times: Former Russian Spy Poisoned by Nerve Agent, British Police Say

Daily Beast: Peace Now? Be Careful. South Korea’s Government May Be as Deceptive as Kim Jong Un.

Defense News: Some ‘hiccups’ with engine design, but B-21 on track, Wittman says

Business Insider: Boeing’s struggling Air Force tanker program may be headed for more trouble

USNI News: Navy Working New Fleet Size Study Following Latest Strategic Reviews

Defense One: Stand Up for the Constitution: Stop Unauthorized Involvement in Yemen’s Civil War

Army Times: Army to position more armored vehicles in Europe, speed upgrades to equipment at home

Fox News: Navy begins under-ice submarine exercise off Alaska coast

CNN: Pledge to halt missile tests comes after busy year of launches

Foreign Policy: Baathism Caused the Chaos in Iraq and Syria

Military.com: US, Allies Conduct Biggest Artillery Event in Europe Since Cold War

Marine Corps Times: SECNAV, Marine Corps commandant criticize China’s expansion plans

Task and Purpose: The Marine Corps Says It’s Not Lowering Standards For Female Marines. This Photo Says Otherwise.

AP: Retention of female submariners on par with men

USA Today: Syria: Civilians continue to flee escalating violence in Ghouta