Really? Mothballing aircraft carriers?
The idea floated last week by Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel seemed particularly shocking in this Navy town - home to half the nation's fleet of nuclear flattops, where carrier deployments and homecomings routinely lead evening newscasts.
It's tempting to dismiss the notion of retiring two or three of the world's most recognizable warships as political brinkmanship - a veiled attempt to push Congress into reversing big national security cuts.
But defense analysts say people shouldn't roll their eyes at Hagel's warning or other drastic changes described last week in the Pentagon's first formal attempt to detail the long-term effects of sequestration.
If Congress does nothing to mitigate $500 billion in across-the-board defense cuts planned over the next decade, several analysts say, reducing the number of carrier strike groups from 11 is more than just a possibility - it's almost assured.
"Given the size of the cuts, it's hard to imagine a scenario that wouldn't involve cutting carriers," said Todd Harrison, a defense budget expert at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.
In an exercise this spring, Harrison and defense analysts from three other Washington-based think tanks developed plans for how they would deal with sequestration. Every group said it would eliminate at least two carrier strike groups; one analyst said he would cut four. Even if Congress reduced the budget cuts by half, each team of analysts still recommended cutting at least two carrier strike groups.
Aircraft carriers are widely considered America's best weapon for projecting force around the globe. They're also the most expensive piece of military equipment ever - one that typically deploys with seven squadrons of multimillion-dollar aircraft, a cruiser, two or three destroyers or frigates, and about 5,500 personnel.
"It's not that carriers aren't important; it's that perhaps other systems in the force, even in the Navy, are of a higher priority and deliver more bang for the buck," said Harrison, noting that he would rather invest in stealthy Virginia-class submarines and unmanned aircraft. "You can try to maintain 11 carriers, but if you don't have money to deploy them, they won't be very useful."