COULD THIS BE REAL? Breaking reports from Seoul this morning indicate that North Korea was much more flexible about discussing nuclear disarmament than anyone expected going into the historic meeting between Kim Jong Un and a high-level delegation from the South.

HAPPENING TODAY: McAleese and Associates begins its 2019 Defense Programs Conference at 8 a.m. and features top defense officials speaking throughout the day. The roster includes Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson; Gen. Paul Selva, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Sen. Roger Wicker; Rep. Adam Smith; Gen. Glenn Walters, assistant Marine Corps commandant; and Lt. Gen. Samuel Greaves, director of Missile Defense Agency.

TRUMP IGNORES MATTIS: Mattis has a reputation for deftly managing his boss, and therefore increasing his influence over matters affecting the Pentagon. One way Mattis does this is by carefully avoiding contradicting President Trump in public, and keeping his advice to the president private, so it’s never quite clear when he’s been overruled or ignored.

But a memo from Mattis posted on the Commerce Department website provides a rare behind-the-curtain peek at how Trump can and does disregard the advice of his most trusted advisers. Asked to weigh in on Trump’s plan to levy new tariffs against steel and aluminum exporting countries, Mattis recommended a policy that would target China and urge allies to work with the U.S. “We recommend an inter-agency group further refine the targeted tariffs, so as to create incentives for trade partners to work with the U.S.,” Mattis wrote in the Feb. 17 memo, which argued for a nuanced strategy designed to avoid antagonizing America’s closest allies.

“If the Administration moves forward with targeted tariffs or quotas on steel, DoD recommends that the management and labor leaders of the respective industries be convened by the President, so that they may understand that these tariffs and quotas are conditional. Moreover, if the Administration takes action on steel, DoD recommends waiting before taking further steps on aluminum. The prospect of trade action on aluminum may be sufficient to coerce improved behavior of bad actors.

“It is critical that we reinforce to our key allies that these actions are focused on correcting Chinese overproduction and countering their attempts to circumvent existing antidumping tariffs — not the bilateral U.S. relationship.”  

Trump went another direction, preferring a far more confrontational approach that put friends and foes alike on notice that America wants better deals from any country that enjoys a trade surplus with the U.S.

FOOTNOTE: Trump also has a memo from Mattis outlining his advice on how to proceed on the question on transgender troops. The recommendation is private, so that whatever Trump decides, Mattis can salute smartly and carry out the orders. Every indication is Mattis is recommending transgender troops be allowed to serve, as long as they are 100 percent deployable, a standards-based policy that could pass legal muster. Trump has made no decision, and four separate court orders require the Pentagon to continue the policy of allowing transgender troops to continue to serve.

One notable difference between trade and transgender: Trump campaigned on the trade issue, which is based on a deeply held belief that he has expressed for years, well before he ran for president. The transgender troop ban is something that he sprung on the Pentagon last year, and it’s not clear how wedded he is to the idea, and whether he might be more amenable to a compromise. Stay tuned.

WAIT AND SEE: Lockheed Martin CEO Marillyn Hewson got questions Monday on Trump’s proposed tariffs on steel and aluminum imports but downplayed concerns about the effects on defense acquisition programs. “We’ll have to wait and see the details,” Hewson told CNBC.

Sen. James Inhofe, a senior Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the proposed 25 percent tariff on steel imports and 10 percent tariff on aluminum could affect the Pentagon’s shipbuilding and aircraft procurement programs. “It could and there also a lot of our allies that are really quite upset about that too,” Inhofe told Travis. “I’m not sure I really agree with that. It is a form a protectionism.”

Sen. John McCain, the Senate Armed Services chairman, tweeted his opposition to Trump’s tariffs last week, saying they would “hurt American workers and consumers, and alienate us from our most important allies and trading partners.” House Speaker Paul Ryan also came out against Trump’s plan on Monday. But Republican members were still muted. Rep. Bradley Byrne sits on the House Armed Services Committee and is a member of the shipbuilding caucus. His Alabama district includes the Austal USA shipyard that builds the Navy’s Independence-class littoral combat ships. Spokesman Seth Morrow said the congressman is awaiting more details, especially which countries will be targeted.

“Until we have more information, it is difficult to measure the impact on the Austal shipyard in Mobile or the shipbuilding industrial base. Ultimately, he believes any tariffs should improve our national security and not hinder our efforts to build a 355-ship Navy,” Morrow wrote in an email.

DEFENSE APPROPRIATIONS LOSES COCHRAN: It had been anticipated for months, but after missing time from the Senate due to a string of health issues, Sen. Thad Cochran finally announced he is retiring. “I regret my health has become an ongoing challenge. I intend to fulfill my responsibilities and commitments to the people of Mississippi and the Senate through the completion of the 2018 appropriations cycle, after which I will formally retire from the U.S. Senate,” Cochran said in a statement. That means he will also step down as chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee and its defense subcommittee, where he oversees Pentagon spending with top Democrat Sen. Dick Durbin.

Cochran, a former Navy officer who served four decades, has set an effective retirement date of April 1 and will leave just after Congress is expected to finally finish an overdue 2018 spending omnibus. He will not work on the upcoming 2019 defense budget. Sen. Richard Shelby will be the most senior Republican on the appropriations committee and is expected to become chairman. Shelby is also the senior member on the defense subcommittee, but it was not immediately clear who the committee might choose to replace Cochran.

SENATORS BACK DOD FLEXIBILITY: One of the issues the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee may still take up under Cochran is spending flexibility for the Pentagon this year. Both Inhofe and Sen. Tim Kaine, who also sits on Armed Services, sent a letter to Cochran and Durbin on Monday asking them to ease restrictions on how the military can spend its 2018 funding. An appropriations omnibus is expected to be passed by March 23 and the Pentagon will have about six months to spend its operations and maintenance money before it expires Oct. 1. “As such, we request that the Appropriations Committee consider exempting the Department of Defense from statutory limitations on obligating funds in Fiscal Year 2018. With proper congressional oversight, two different exceptions could help alleviate pressure for the department,” Inhofe and Kaine wrote.

The senators suggested the committee allow the Pentagon to spend its O&M funds past the end of this fiscal year, something Army Secretary Mark Esper has advocated, or ease the so-called 80/20 Rule, which bars the military from spending more than 20 percent of a budget in the last two months of the fiscal year. Rep. Mac Thornberry, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said last week that Republican leaders are already onboard with similar plans in the House and that he was confident some measure would be included in the final omnibus.

AMBER’S LAST BATTLE: After a year at the Pentagon as deputy assistant to the secretary of defense for outreach in public affairs, Amber Smith is leaving to return to the private sector. Smith, a former Army Kiowa helicopter pilot, had a tough mission at the Pentagon, countering some of the negative stereotypes about the U.S. military. I talked to her about her career, and her efforts to help Americans get to know their military better, just before she packed up her E-ring office last week. Read the interview here.

PHALANX UPGRADE FOR JAPAN: The State Department has approved the sale of MK 15 Phalanx Close-in Weapon System Block IB conversion kits to Japan for $45 million, according to the Defense Security Cooperation Agency. The kits will allow Japan to convert its Phalanx Block IB Baseline 1 systems to Baseline 2 systems. The Phalanx is used by the U.S. Navy on its ship decks to fire on threats such as missiles or aircraft that have penetrated other defenses.

THEY ARM THE WORLD: Russian President Vladimir Putin said Monday that Russia’s military exports are booming in part because Syria’s civil war has helped advertise the effectiveness of those weapons to the world.

“Russia will be actively developing military-technical cooperation with all interested countries, including in most high-tech segments — on those armaments for aviation, air defense, land troops and the navy that have demonstrated their utmost efficiency during the Syrian operation,” Putin said Monday according to TASS, a state-run media outlet. “The export of military hardware has grown for a third year in a row to more than $15 billion,” he added.

DID RUSSIA NIX ROMNEY? The author of the Trump dossier wrote a private memo in November 2016 that says Russia is claiming credit for getting president-elect Trump to reject Mitt Romney as his secretary of state, according to a new report. The New Yorker interviewed Trump dossier author Christopher Steele, who told the publication that he wrote a private memo describing this claim, which came from a “senior Russian official.”

“The official said that he was merely relaying talk circulating in the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but what he’d heard was astonishing: people were saying that the Kremlin had intervened to block Trump’s initial choice for Secretary of State, Mitt Romney,” the New Yorker reported Monday.

“The memo said that the Kremlin, through unspecified channels, had asked Trump to appoint someone who would be prepared to lift Ukraine-related sanctions, and who would coöperate on security issues of interest to Russia, such as the conflict in Syria,” it said. “If what the source heard was true, then a foreign power was exercising pivotal influence over U.S. foreign policy — and an incoming president.”

THE RUNDOWN

Reuters: China defends hike in military spending as proportionate and low

Air Force Times: Fewer planes are ready to fly: Air Force mission-capable rates decline amid pilot crisis

Washington Post: Faced with increased criticism, Pentagon slashes cloud computing contract awarded to an Amazon partner

Business Insider: ‘We’re going to be fighting from space in a matter of years’: The Air Force is putting ‘tremendous emphasis’ on preparing for war in space

AP: British media say former Russian spy in critical condition

Breaking Defense: Lockheed CEO Threads Way Twixt Nationalism & Allied Cooperation

Foreign Policy: I’m Sorry for Creating the ‘Gerasimov Doctrine’

Defense One: Expect North Korea to Add Nuclear Coercion to Its Provocation Playbook

New York Times: Syrian Forces Strip Medical Supplies From Aid Convoy

DoD Buzz: New Chief Management Officer to Lead Pentagon Bureaucracy Overhaul

Task and Purpose: General Petraeus Work Out Playlist

The Hill: US, South Korea to begin negotiations on sharing military costs

USA Today: A look at the most dangerous places U.S. troops are deployed