KIM-MOON SUMMIT AGREEMENTS: The smiles and warm feelings on display as South Korean President Moon Jae-in met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un were apparently not just for show as the two leaders met for their third summit. On their second day of talks in Pyongyang, there were some concrete agreements, including a promise by Kim to “permanently dismantle” a missile-engine test facility and a missile launchpad in Dongchang-ri under the watchful eyes of international inspectors.

HAPPENING TODAY, AFA CONFERENCE WRAPS UP: It’s the final day of the Air Force Association’s annual Air, Space and Cyber Conference at National Harbor, Md. Deputy Defense Secretary Pat Shanahan speaks at 1 p.m. and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos delivers a keynote address at 3:40 p.m.

MATTIS LAUGHS OFF RUMORS OF HIS DEPARTURE: In lighthearted persiflage with reporters outside the Pentagon late yesterday, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis scoffed at news reports suggesting he might be leaving the Pentagon soon. “I wouldn’t take it seriously at all,” he said while awaiting the arrival of the Philippine defense secretary.

“Like most of those kinds of things in this town, somebody cooks up a headline, they then call to a normally chatty class of people, they find a couple other things to put in, they add their rumor, somebody on the other coast starts writing the same thing, next thing you know you’ve got a story,” Mattis told the small group of reporters. “It’ll die down. … How many times have we been through this now, just since I’ve been here?”

Mattis, of course, serves at the pleasure of the president, and reports in the Washington Post, Politico and the New York Times have all quoted White House sources as saying Trump is thinking about replacing Mattis after the midterm elections.

You may recall Secretary of State Rex Tillerson also downplayed suggestions he was on the way out in the months before he was fired in March. Asked yesterday if he ever thinks about leaving, Mattis joked, “Of course I never think about leaving. I love it here. I’m thinking about retiring here. I’ll get a little place down on the Potomac,” he said, gesturing toward the marina across from the Pentagon parade field.

DEFENSE BUDGET HEADS TO FINAL VOTE: The House will have its first chance early next week to take the final vote on the Pentagon’s annual funding following Senate passage yesterday. The 93-7 vote in the upper chamber now puts the first on-time defense budget in a decade within reach. Trump must sign the $674 billion defense appropriations, which is part of a minibus funding package, before the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30 to avoid another stopgap continuing resolution.

“Critically, after subjecting America’s all-volunteer armed forces to years of belt tightening, this legislation will build on our recent progress in rebuilding the readiness of our military and investing more in the men and women who wear the uniform,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on the chamber floor.

NO SPACE FORCE STICKER SHOCK: A new $13 billion cost estimate for Trump’s Space Force did little Tuesday to shift the political dynamic for the initiative on Capitol Hill, where key lawmakers appeared unsurprised and took a wait-and-see attitude. “That number has been hinted at for quite a while,” said Sen. Jim Inhofe, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. “What we haven’t seen — we have the figure $13 billion — what do we get for $13 billion? We don’t know that yet.”

The Pentagon is expected to submit a legislative proposal and could ask Congress to fund $3.3 billion next year. “I’m not going to speculate about funding before the budget has even been submitted,” said Rep. Mike Rogers, who has spearheaded a space service.

BETTER SPENT ELSEWHERE: Democrats are still opposed to one of Trump’s signature initiatives. Sen. Jack Reed, the ranking member on the Senate Armed Services Committee, called the new Space Force cost estimate unsurprising. “I think those funds could be used much more effectively in other endeavors, research, and new weapons systems,” Reed said.

Rep. Adam Smith, who is the ranking member on the House Armed Services Committee, had made clear before that he is completely opposed to creating the Space Force and the $13 billion did little to shift his position. “This is an initial estimate, but it suggests just how costly President Trump’s plan for a separate ‘Space Force’ would be. That is a major reason why I am opposed to his request,” Smith said.

BANNING THE BOMB: Congress’ Republican majority decisively won a debate with Democrats this year over allowing the Pentagon to develop a new low-yield warhead. It added $65 million for the W76-2 warhead into a minibus spending package that was sent to Trump last week. But a group of Democrats is fighting back and introduced a bill Tuesday that would ban “research, development, production, and deployment” of the weapons.

The submarine-launched warhead could trigger a dangerous new arms race and make nuclear war more likely, said Smith, along with three other congressmen and one senator who sponsored the bill. “We should not fund President Trump’s request for new low-yield nuclear weapons. His proposal dangerously lowers the threshold to nuclear use and siphons money away from genuine military readiness needs,” Smith said in a statement.

The plan to equip some submarines with a lower-yield option doesn’t really involve a lot of research, development or production. The plan is to retrofit about two dozen existing W76 warheads that are deployed on submarine-launched D-5 Trident missiles, and are already undergoing modernization.

The current high-yield warhead has a two-stage design in which a small fission explosion triggers a much more powerful fusion reaction. On some of the warheads, the fusion component would be removed, leaving only the smaller fission device, resulting in a lower yield.

HASC UNDER SMITH: A Democrat takeover of the House in November would not only shift the fortunes of the Trump administration, it would also likely make Smith the House Armed Services chairman and one of the most powerful voices on defense policy in Washington.

Smaller defense spending, a more limited role for the U.S. military in the world, and fewer nuclear weapons are central to the vision Smith has laid out for the committee. You can read more about it in this week’s Washington Examiner magazine.

THE SYRIAN DMZ: The U.S. military has expressed support for a plan to establish a demilitarized zone in northern Syria that would separate rebels in their last stronghold from advancing government forces. “I’ll tell you what, if this holds up and it can save lives and avoid the humanitarian disaster that it could have been, then we’re definitely supporting that,” said Col. Sean Ryan, a military spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition in Baghdad. “But that’s definitely a decision between Russia and Turkey, and the coalition was not involved with that.”

The agreement to create a buffer zone was worked out Monday in a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan held in Sochi, Russia. The United States was not a party to the talks, and won’t be involved in the implementation of the DMZ, which calls for the 115-mile long strip to be patrolled by Turkish and Russian forces.

FORT TRUMP: Polish President Andrzej Duda is anxious to get U.S. troops deployed on Polish soil to deter Russia, and as part of his pitch to Trump yesterday, he promised to construct a permanent U.S. military base and name it “Fort Trump.”

“I would very much like for us to set up a permanent American base in Poland, which we would call Fort Trump, and I firmly believe this is possible,” Duda said at yesterday’s joint press conference at the White House. “I’m also happy that we have, in Poland, American soldiers as part of our bilateral agreement that I would like to invite you, Mr. President, to post more American troops to Poland.”

Trump did not endorse the request, but noted Duda offered to pay for the base, making the idea more attractive. “I think it should be pointed out that the president also said, and he said it publicly, that he would pay the United States, meaning Poland would be paying billions of dollars for a base,” Trump said.

“It’s one thing when we defend countries that can’t defend themselves. And they’re great people, and we should help them. We don’t expect anything for that.  But when we’re defending immensely wealthy countries and they’re not the paying for the defense to the United States, they’re only taking advantage of us.”

TRUMP WITHDRAWS TRANSGENDER APPEAL TO SCOTUS: The ups and downs of the litigation over Trump’s transgender military service ban can be dizzying. The administration has now withdrawn a request that the U.S. Supreme Court block an order forcing it to release thousands of internal White House documents related to the policy. It backed off the request because a federal district court in Washington granted a temporary stay on the order.

But the legal fight is not over. The district court is still weighing arguments over the release of the emails and other confidential correspondence by Trump and other officials. The internal documents surrounding Trump’s July 2017 tweets announcing a complete ban on transgender military service have become front and center as a federal civil suit filed against the president and Mattis in Seattle moves toward trial.

THE RUNDOWN

Washington Examiner: Mike Pompeo expresses ‘sorrow’ after Syria shoots down Russian warplane

Defense News: Congress to buy 3 more LCS than the Navy needs but gut funding for sensors that make them valuable

Daily Beast: North Korea Summit Sets the Stage For Potential Trump Fiasco

Air Force Times: Goldfein: Air Force must return to expeditionary roots to fight next war

CNN: Analysis: Only a fool takes Putin at his word in Syria

Defense News: How the Air Force plans to use space to project power in the 21st century

Foreign Policy: ‘Your Mission Is to Keep All This From Collapsing Into Nuclear Hellfire’

Defense One: Cognitive Science Helps Explain How We Blunder Into War

New York Times: With a Submarine, Japan Sends a Message in the South China Sea

Roll Call: Future of U.S. Military in Syria Decision Coming Soon, Trump Says

USNI News: High-End Exercise Valiant Shield 2018 Features Joint Strike Fighters, 15,000 Personnel