If you haven't been following Washington's agonizing debate over the defense budget, let us summarize it for you: Cutting the Pentagon's allowance will kill your grandmother. Maybe the family dog, too. But definitely granny. It's one thing to brace for the pain of cuts that will probably slice $450 billion over 10 years from the defense budget. But it's quite another to pretend, for the sake of leverage in Congress or to stroke a political or military constituency, that those cuts will open America's ramparts to the barbarians. After all, even the hugest cuts imaginable will mean the U.S. spends $4 trillion on the military over 10 years instead of $5 trillion. Yet day in and day out, new Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, members of Congress, think-tank wonks and journalists offer up steaming piles of hysteria over the defense budget. News flash: The Pentagon's nightmare scenario of cuts north of $800 billion over a decade ain't gonna happen. But since the hysteria is only going to increase over the next week, as a "Super-Committee" of legislators wheezes to meet its Nov. 23 deadline for cutting the federal budget, it's time to compile a list of the most lunatic, paranoid, factually challenged, intelligence-insulting predictions on offer about the dire impact of defense cuts. Do it for grandma. Goodbye, Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles It's not just some dirty hippie's dream. It's what Leon Panetta says will be a reality under "sequestration" — the budgetary term of art for the defense cuts that will be imposed if the Super-Committee fails. The cuts would "Eliminate [the] ICBM leg of Triad," Panetta wrote to Sen. John McCain on Monday. Translated from the wonk, that means no more intercontinental ballistic missiles. All 450 of them? Crated away. No. Just — no. Iran looks like it's building a nuclear weapon. North Korea still has its own. And the Pentagon would allow the entire ICBM fleet to wither on the vine? Leaving the U.S. nuclear deterrent to be delivered only through relatively expensive bombers and submarines? Absolutely inconceivable. Demagogic. No. Photo: DoD

The Mini-Me Military Panetta's letter to McCain didn't just say that sequestration would be bad. He said it would be historically bad. As in the military would be reduced to a throwback force manned by practically no one. Or, as Panetta put it: "The smallest ground force since 1940. A fleet of fewer than 230 ships, the smallest level since 1915. The smallest tactical fighter force in the history of the Air Force." Before you go polishing off the Lee-Enfield rifles, Dreadnoughts and biplanes, consider this. In the estimation of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a hawkish D.C. think tank, sequestration would reduce the defense budget to a level not seen since ... 2007. "Under sequestration, the base [Defense Department] budget would fall to roughly $472 billion in FY [fiscal year] 2013," writes budget analyst Todd Harrison. "This would bring the budget back to approximately the same level of funding as FY 2007, adjusting for inflation." The Army, Navy and Air Force of 2007 had their struggles. Freezing that force in amber would still leave a military capable of any competitor for at least the decade of budgets subject to sequestration. And with the Navy, Panetta's using a debater's trick: The current 283-ship Navy is already the smallest U.S. fleet since 1916, and it's the finest Navy on Earth. Let's not pretend it can barely deal with the Hun. Photo: Flickr/Brandi Jordan

The Hollow Military The three major conservative think tanks in Washington have formed a defense-lobbying Voltron. It's called Defending Defense, and its constituent parts — the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation and the upstart Foreign Policy Initiative — are here to warn wavering Tea Party congressmembers that the bad days of the post-Vietnam military are creeping back up. That is, a "Hollow Force," like the one the U.S. had after it left Vietnam — exhausted, poorly trained, in need of modernization, and basically useless. "The U.S. military is on an almost-inevitable — and unsustainable — path toward a 21st-century form of 'hollowness' that will leave it less prepared for unforeseen crises and contingencies in the future," the think tanks warned in a June report subtly titled "Warning: Hollow Force Ahead!" Why? Because readiness levels are way low and demand for the military is way high. But readiness measures always suffer in wartime, because troops are speeding through deployments with minimal rest for training time. Unless these conservative think tanks suddenly think the military lost in Afghanistan and Iraq, it's not the end of the world. More importantly, Defending Defense forgets a couple of things. The Army leadership has sworn up and down that no matter how deep the cuts go, the Army won't hollow out. Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno told an Army convention last month that he'd prefer a smaller Army to an incapable one. Panetta echoed that very cry.

And on top of that, the post-Iraq and -Afghanistan military, unlike the post-Vietnam military, is made up of volunteers, not draftees; it will keep battle-hardened troops, not lose embittered conscripts. And unless the think tankers believe that the Army of 2007 was an inept one, the only thing hollow is its paranoid warning. Flickr/Your Local Dave

Superpower No More With the possible exception of the aviation lobby, there's no more reliable faction devoted to preserving the defense budget than the Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee. In October, they released their own analysis of the possible impacts of sequestration. Surprise: It saw big budget cuts as the kryptonite to America's days as a superpower. "Future Cuts Transform a Superpower into a Regional Power," the GOP's executive summary of the cuts lamented. "Vital missions" were at risk. While all the services will be bruised, "the Marine Corps will be broken." The cuts will "jeopardize our ability to defend America against a nuclear attack." You read that right. The legislators think there's a likelihood the U.S. will be nuked if the defense budget goes back to its 2007 levels. But the idea that the U.S. will cease to be a superpower is no less nuts. The committee members fear that the Navy will lose "more than 60 ships" under sequestration. Even if it does, it'll still have more than 220, including (by the committee's own estimate) nine carrier battle groups, as well as a network of bases globally to resupply them. This is not the mark of a military that can only patrol the Western Hemisphere. In fact, the entire rest of the world doesn't have nine aircraft carriers between it. And if you ever tell a Marine to his face that anything can break his Corps, I recommend immediately ducking. For a more sober assessment, see the editors of Aviation Week. "The range of cuts being discussed is still well within the proportions of drawdowns after the ends of the Korean, Vietnam and Cold wars," they write. "Even the most drastic cuts will not end the U.S.'s superpower status." To be fair, the sober ex-Pentagon chief Robert Gates thought that the Korea, Vietnam and Cold war drawdowns were also too steep. But Gates never said anything about them gambling with America's superpower status. Photo: Flickr/Deege@fermentarium.com