Defense Secretary James Mattis has said current efforts prioritize the strengthening of diplomatic affairs with North Korea; but the military prepared options for a potential attack, DoD News reported Tuesday.

Mattis talked to reporters about efforts to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula while on his way to the Foreign Ministers’ Meeting on Security and Stability on the Korean Peninsula in Canada.

“This meeting is designed to still make progress diplomatically, such as you’ve seen with three unanimous Security Council resolutions over these last months,” said Mattis.

He noted diplomatic programs have started to develop and North Korea has announced plans to send athletes and musicians who will participate at the Winter Olympics in South Korea.

The defense secretary also traveled to the Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho to meet with members of the 366th Fighter Wing, a U.S. Air Force deployable fighter squadron dubbed as the Gunfighters.

The U.S. Africa Command has built a new tool that works to measure the command’s progress in increasing the participation of women in security cooperation and peacekeeping operations.

The WPS Security Force Assistance assessment tool is designed to inform AFRICOM on how African partner nations integrate women into its capacity-building initiatives, the Defense Department said Friday.

Congress passed the Women, Peace and Security Act of 2017 in October, directing AFRICOM to find new ways to incorporate women, peace and security into security cooperation activities.

AFRICOM worked to develop training opportunities for women from African militaries as well as co-host workshops and seminars on gender integration, women’s role in peacekeeping missions and ways to mitigate gender-based violence.

Cori Fleser, AFRICOM’s gender adviser and creator of the SFA assessment tool, said that she developed the platform to help her provide more tailored recommendations on the implementation of WPS integration plans.

She added that the analytic tool is intended to give the command a better understanding of how gender affects the security sector, as well as identify opportunities for collaboration with partner nations.

The SFA tool uses open source data from international organizations such as the United Nations, World Bank and World Health Organization as well as indicators from global indices, including the Fragile States Index and Women, Peace and Security Index.

The Trump administration has issued a draft of the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review and plans to release the final version of the document in February, HuffPost reported Thursday.

The administration aims to advance the development of low-yield nuclear weapons in an effort to deter regional aggression, according to the pre-decisional NPR draft obtained by the publication.

The draft document calls for the U.S. to raise its nuclear threshold and update dual-capable aircraft with the deployment of F-35A jets.

Other themes addressed in the draft NPR include the U.S. government’s support for NATO, use of diplomatic agreements in risk reduction efforts and support for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization Preparatory Committee, according to the report.

The document also cited that the U.S. “will not resume nuclear explosive testing unless necessary to ensure the safety and effectiveness of the U.S. nuclear arsenal.”

The NPR report also calls for the modernization of the nuclear command, control and communications capabilities and sustainment of the country’s strategic nuclear triad that includes ballistic missile submarines, ground-based intercontinental ballistic missiles and strategic bombers.

The U.S. Navy has tested a Boeing-built P-8 Poseidon aircraft equipped with an identification friend or foe technology at the Patuxent River Naval Air Station’s anechoic chamber.

The test was part of an AIMS certification process for the AN/UPX-43 IFF interrogator designed to classify surrounding vehicles and vessels as either allied or enemy forces, the Navy said Jan. 8.

The Navy estimated that performing tests inside the chamber cost nearly $800,000 and generated 15 hours of data over 3.5 weeks, while performing tests inflight would cost $5.31 million and generate only 3.6 hours of data over a 12-week period.

Anechoic chambers have walls that are built to absorb electromagnetic and sound waves.

The Defense Department established the AIMS certification to ensure the performance quality of IFF systems for military use.

P-8 is designed to perform both anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare missions.