North Korea halts testing; USAF to put sensors on allies’ satellites; WH relaxes drone-export rules; Afghan bomber kills 57; and just a bit more...

North Korea: No need for more nuke, missile tests. On Friday, Pyongyang surprised the world by announcing that it was satisfied with the design of its nuclear weapons and would therefore end developmental testing and close one test facility. BBC, here.

President Trump hailed the announcement, which came a week before the leaders of South and North Korea are to meet in a historic summit. Among his tweets on the matter, the president said that North Korea “...agreed to denuclearization (so great for World)...”

Sadly, that’s not true. The Associated Press explains: “South Korea, which is set to meet with North Korea later this week, has said Kim has expressed genuine interest in dealing away his nuclear weapons. But the North for decades has been pushing a concept of ‘denuclearization’ that bears no resemblance to the American definition, vowing to pursue nuclear development unless Washington removes its troops from the Korean Peninsula and the nuclear umbrella defending South Korea and Japan.”

Here’s an explanation in even more detail, from the Federation of American Scientists’ Ankit Panda and Adam Mount.

White House: No relief on sanctions unless North Korea gives up its nukes, White House officials tell the Wall Street Journal in the runup to the anticipated, if not scheduled and certain, U.S.-DPRK summit.

But the summit is the prize, Panda argues in this BBC analysis. When Kim Jung-Un appears on the world stage with an American president, he will have achieved something neither his father nor grandfather did.

All quiet on the DMZ. South Korea will stop playing "bouncy music and other propaganda" into the North, South Korea's defense ministry announced this morning. It's probably a good thing, the New York Times notes, since Seoul's President Moon Jae-in will meet the North's Kim Jong-un for the first time near the DMZ on Friday. Writes the Times, "The venue — Panmunjom, a 'truce village' inside the DMZ — is within the earshot of propaganda broadcasts from both sides." That, here.

From Defense One

North Korea Is Not De-Nuclearizing // Ankit Panda and Adam Mount: The Trump administration shouldn't get too excited about Kim Jong Un's pledge to limit his weapons program.

US Air Force to Put Sensors on Allies' Satellites // Marcus Weisgerber: The move is intended to deter Russia or China from shooting down spacecraft — and provide backups if they do.

The White House Is Relaxing Drone Exports. Here's a Good Next Step // Herbert "Hawk" Carlisle: A 31-year-old arms-control pact governs UAVs as if they were cruise missiles. Our national leadership in the field depends on fixing that.

Thornberry's Pentagon-Reform Plan to Nowhere // William D. Hartung: It's pitched as a way to cut waste — but would make the misallocation of our tax dollars more likely.

Welcome to this Monday edition of The D Brief by Ben Watson and Bradley Peniston. And if you find this useful, consider forwarding it to a friend or colleague. They can subscribe here for free.

Visiting POTUS this week in Washington: French President Emmanuel Macron (Monday through Wednesday), then German Chancellor Angela Merkel (Thursday and Friday).
On the docket: “U.S.-European differences on the Iran nuclear deal and souring trade relations,” Reuters reports. France wants to keep the Iran deal — along with the UN, EU, and Russia, to name a few Reuters rolled up separately, here — and Trump is, of course, strongly against it. Bloomberg has a bit more on what to expect from Merkel and Macron, here.
What Macron wants to avoid: The U.S. military leaving Syria the moment ISIS last elements are defeated — without considering the second- and third-order effects on Syrian and regional stability, he told Fox News Sunday.
In his own words: "The day we will finish this war against ISIS, if we leave, definitely and totally, even from a political point of view, we will leave the floor to the Iranian regime, Bashar al-Assad and his guys, and they will prepare the new war. They will fuel the new terrorists."   

Today in national security podcasts, let the Iran-watchers of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies tell you all about “the future of the Iran deal,” or learn about jihadist frontiers in Africa, or dive into “Russia’s disinformation offensive,” in a series of roughly half-hour podcasts FDD calls “Foreign Podicy.”
We’ll be highlighting one natsec podcast each day this week, so get your headphones handy and stay tuned...

In Afghanistan, an ISIS suicide bomber killed 57 and wounded more than 100 in Kabul on Sunday “as they lined up at a government office in Kabul to register to vote” for parliamentary elections this October, the New York Times reports from the capital.
Concerning trendlines: “Public interest in the October elections has been alarmingly low because of voter fatigue after successive fraudulent elections and concerns about the threat to safety at polling stations posed by suicide bombers and other violence from groups opposing the government,” the Times writes.
Along those lines, the Associated Press adds, “Last week, three police officers guarding voter registration centers in two Afghan provinces were killed by militants.” More — including weekend violence in two other provinces — here.
Not that anyone is expecting a big voter drive in the first seven days of registration, but, the Times notes in that first week, “just 190,000 people signed up — from what political parties estimated is a pool of about 14 million eligible voters.” More from the Times, here.
Related: How powerful is ISIS in Afghanistan? The AP has some answers in this weekend explainer.

The Syrian military is on the verge of retaking all of Damascus from militants, focusing now on a pocket south of the capital, Reuters reports this morning from Beirut. Not a lot of detail yet out of that drive, short of this: “State television broadcast live footage showing the area of Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp and the al-Hajar al-Aswad district with large plumes of smoke rising from several places.” A bit more from Sunday, via the Associated Press, here.

A Saudi-led airstrike on a wedding in northwest Yemen killed at least 20 people on Sunday, Reuters reports from a warzone where verification is still incredibly difficult. To that end, “The head of Al Jumhouri hospital in Hajjah told Reuters by telephone that the hospital had received 40 bodies, most of them torn to pieces, and that 46 people had been injured, including 30 children, in air strikes that hit a wedding gathering.”
‘Looking into it.’ The Saudis told Reuters they take the allegation seriously and will investigate it. Tiny bit more, here.

ICYMI: Here are a few things that have collapsed in Yemen, according to the International Committee for the Red Cross:    

• The food chain.
• The health-care system.
• The education system.
• The sewer and water system.

On the rise in Yemen:   

• Disease.  
• Malnutrition.
• Deaths of civilians.

And we end this morning with something completely different: Watch U.S. special operators hop out of a C-17 along with their boat in this video post last week from The Drive. What you’ll see: “Special Warfare Combat-craft Crewmen (SWCCs) of Special Boat Team 20 leaping out of a C-17 behind two of their stealthy Combat Craft Assault (CCA) boats as part of a training evolution… Two can fit in a single C-17, and if need be, they can be airdropped along with their crews.”
Where you probably saw SWCC operators: In the 2012 film, “Act of Valor.” (And if you missed those scenes, you can see them over on YouTube, here.) Read the rest at The Drive, here.