Thanks to the Budget Control Act of 2011, the Pentagon is due for a cut of $500 billion over nine years, starting on Jan. 2, 2013. Next year’s cut comes in at $54 billion. That prospect has generated a lot of end-of-the-world-type rhetoric from Washington hawks.

Yet with the national debt exceeding $16 trillion, a gross debt-to-GDP ratio above 100 percent, and Moody’s Investors Service warning the country of a potential credit downgrade, we need to cut through the rhetoric and face the facts. Defense sequester cuts simply do not warrant the fears they inspire.