So far, most Republicans have sat back and watched President Elon Musk's bull-in-a-china-shop efforts to fire people and slash budgets with glee. The whole tech-bro "move fast and break things" ideology is just fine with them, as long as the targets are parts of the federal government they have long hated -- like foreign aid or the Department of Education. But now things are about to get a little more personal for them, since the next department on the chopping block is going to be the military. The Washington Post broke the story today of what exactly this is going to mean:

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered senior leaders at the Pentagon and throughout the U.S. military to develop plans for cutting 8 percent from the defense budget in each of the next five years, according to a memo obtained by The Washington Post and officials familiar with the matter -- a striking proposal certain to face internal resistance and strident bipartisan opposition in Congress.

Hegseth ordered the proposed cuts to be drawn up by Feb. 24, according to the memo, which is dated Tuesday and includes a list of 17 categories that the Trump administration wants exempted. Among them: operations at the southern U.S. border, modernization of nuclear weapons and missile defense, and acquisition of submarines, one-way attack drones and other munitions.

So let's do the math on that. Cutting eight percent a year for five years does not actually add up to 40 percent, since (assumably) each year would use the new baseline of the previous year. This limits the cuts, but not by a whole lot. In the first year, the budget would shrink to 92 percent of what it is now. In the second year, it'd be down to 84.6 percent. Third year, 77.8 percent. Fourth year, 71.6 percent, and the fifth and final year would shrink the military budget down to 65.9 percent of what it currently stands at. That is not a reduction of 40 percent, but it is still more than a third of the Pentagon's current budget.

The Pentagon's budget currently stands at $850 billion. Here is how this would shrink in the next five years, under this new plan:

(0) -- 100% -- $850b

(1) -- 92.0% -- $782b

(2) -- 84.64% -- $719.4b

(3) -- 77.87% -- $661.9b

(4) -- 71.64% -- $608.9b

(5) -- 65.91% -- $560.2b

This would be a total cut of $289.2 billion -- more than one-third of the $850 billion it is now. That's assuming they'd shift the baseline each year. If they didn't -- if they used 8.0 percent of $850 billion each year -- then the budget would wind up being only $510 billion after the fifth year -- a total cut of $340 billion.

Are Republicans really going to go along with this? Are the Republicans in the Senate and House really going to cheer on slashing almost $300 billion from America's defense budget?

Stranger things have happened, I suppose, but it seems more likely that at least some of them are going to have a problem with such deep cuts in the nation's military budget. The Republican Party -- going back to roughly World War II, at the very least -- has always argued for more money for the Pentagon each year, not less. It's been a bedrock part of their party's ideology, in fact. So are they really going to abandon that stance entirely and let the budget-slashers shrink the Pentagon's budget by over a third? That would be a jaw-dropping turnaround for Republicans, to state the obvious.

This is one of those issues that won't fall completely on partisan lines (at least, that's my guess). There are indeed Democrats who have been arguing for cuts to the military budget for years. But there are also Democrats who will likely recoil in horror at the proposed size of these cuts and begin to push back. Some Republicans will just knuckle under to the new plan (because it's what their Dear Leader wants), but others are bound to break ranks and fight the idea tooth and nail. We may see both bipartisan support and bipartisan resistance to the idea.

The Pentagon's budget -- just like other departments -- could almost certainly use some close examination. Their procurement process is the most Byzantine and impenetrable in the entire federal government. An audit of the process would likely find some areas for saving money and speeding the process up. But that's not what is being proposed. What is being proposed is a top-down "cut everything by eight percent per year" mandate. As with everything else that is being slashed, it has a "cut now, worry about mistakes later" feel to it.

Again -- are Republicans really going to support this?

You'll note that this cutting is planned to take place ordered by a memo from the secretary of Defense. It is not part of a congressional budget (at least, not yet). So perhaps we will now see a few Republicans joining Democrats in pointing out the fact that the Constitution gives Congress the power of the purse and that the president can't just ignore appropriations on a whim. So far, the only Republicans who have done so have done so with extreme timidity, for fear of sparking their Dear Leader's wrath. But when it's the Pentagon on the chopping block? That might lead some of them to protest a little more boldly.

The world is a dangerous place right now, and the danger only grows by giving Russia's Vladimir Putin everything he wants in Ukraine. The danger is also going to grow as a direct result of America pulling completely back on all the "soft power" foreign aid we used to give all over the world. China's military is on the rise, and they are eyeing not only the entire South China Sea but also Taiwan.

As I said, not every Democrat is likely to push back, since some of them have been arguing for Pentagon budget cuts themselves. But for those that do push back, the issue seems almost tailored to exploit on the campaign trail: "Republicans are making America less safe! They're slashing three hundred billion dollars from the annual budget for the military! They want to leave us wide open to our enemies! Republicans want to retreat from the world stage! That's not 'making America great again' -- that is making us small and less safe." The ads would just write themselves, really.

Republicans are currently trying to put together a budget (they've got a hard deadline to do so, as the current budget runs out in mid-March). I would be seriously shocked if they actually did put forth a budget that cuts the Pentagon by eight percent. What is more likely to happen is they'll pass whatever military budget they feel like, and then Hegseth and the White House will just ignore it and go ahead and make their cuts anyway.

This could be the biggest political wedge issue ever. It could actually spur Republicans to challenge their Dear Leader in a big way on a major issue. Cutting departments few voters care about is one thing, but cutting the Pentagon's budget is quite another. Cheering on people "moving fast and breaking things" is great when you don't care about the things being broken, but when it involves something near and dear to your party then you're going to see it a little differently.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant