The worries center more on who is not in the room -- namely in the National Security Council's powerful "deputies committee," which is made up of the second-ranking officials across departments such as State, Treasury and Defense. That body has historically cued up options for the Cabinet and ultimately the president, but Trump's slow pace in filling agency slots means that many of the committee's members are either Obama holdovers or career staffers with little influence.

"That is your civilian control," said Andrew Hoehn, who was deputy assistant Defense secretary for strategy under George W. Bush. Hoen, now vice president for research and analysis at the government-funded RAND Corp., said the deputies committee "is how policy is made. Lacking those positions is a concern. Do we have the right set of inputs in place yet? I think the answer to that is no."

The NSC declined several requests for answers about how many deputy committee meetings have taken place during the Trump administration and who has attended. Requests for comment to the office of Mattis, who pledged in his January confirmation hearing to "provide strong civilian leadership of military plans and decisions," were also not answered.

] I never made a study while I was in. Too busy.  Sounds like pretty soft duty to me. What was that Green26 claimed

Indeed - the mess can get pretty busy at meal times.  Plus, they're not usually qualified to do studies, unless it had to do with food consumption.

Is that what you mean by Green26's baseless, personal smears?  

Kim Jong-un is a narcissistic, amoral, ruthless and (perhaps) sociopathic despot, but he's hardly insane. Further, North Korea's entire history of provocation since the 1953 cease-fire agreement has been based on seeking attention and extorting humanitarian assistance from its neighbors and the West, because the country's a socio-economic basket case.

Today's military parade in Pyongyang is a case in point. It's an event that occurs annually on April 15, Kim Il-sung's birthday, which is a North Korean national holiday honoring the late founder of the state. It's a day further marked by hyperbolic but otherwise entirely predictable speeches denouncing the United States. So what else is new?

Other than taking due notice of any new weapons systems, of which there were apparently two, any saber-rattling on our part in response to it is a foolish endeavor that can lead to serious consequences if we're entirely too cavalier about it.

We'll win a war with North Korea, no doubt. But what will that victory look like -- a devastated Seoul? A unified but impoverished Korea which will require our economic assistance and military protection, with a clearly hostile China as its neighbor? An east Asia community of nations which collectively concludes that we are dangerously reckless ourselves, and can no longer be trusted? Be very careful what you ask for.

Very few people in world history have proved themselves to be collectively suicidal. The North Korean leadership is unlikely to use nuclear weapons, because to do so would mean their immediate and utter annihilation and they know it. Nor would launching a conventional war be in their best interests and favor, which would also result in their destruction. Rather, they are crouched in a defensive posture, because their hold is so fragile and tenuous.

We therefore and likely have the luxury of time and can wait them out. Hemmed in by our vigilance and isolated as they are in the world, the North Korean regime under Kim Jong-un will inevitably collapse under its own weight, and eventually be replaced by someone who seeks rapprochement with South Korea and the West on behalf of an impoverished and desperate people.

Did any Vietnamese, Cambodian, or Laotian ever drop even one bomb anywhere in the U.S in all that time?