The Pentagon faces significant cuts in its budget — no matter whether the congressional supercommittee succeeded or failed at finding more ways to reduce the federal deficit. The military plans to cut nearly $500 billion from its budget. One place to look for cuts: in the Army and also the Air Force's stealthy and pricey F-35.

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Defense Secretary Leon Panetta
NPR's Tom Bowman
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a half-trillion dollars
Gordon Adams
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the Second World War
And if those cuts do kick in, the Pentagon will be required to shave off about half a trillion dollars. That's on top of more than 450 billion the military is already looking to cut. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta worries about what he calls difficult choices ahead. But as NPR's Tom Bowman reports now, there's a dispute over how hard those choices really are. Pentagon leaders are downright gloomy these days. Listen to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta recently on Capitol Hill. The fact is we're having to cut a half-trillion dollars, almost a half-trillion dollars out of the defense budget. As tough as it is, it's manageable. We can do this in a way that protects our force for the future, but it's going to take us to the edge. Well, that's a bit of an exaggeration, says Gordon Adams. He worked in the Clinton administration on defense issues. Adams says the Pentagon budget isn't going down. It just won't increase. It's not really a cut except in the first two years because they don't get inflation. But in reality, what it really does is simply flatten the defense budget at a historic level, a level that we have not surpassed at any point since the end of the Second World War.