More Military Musicians Than Diplomats

Here's an interesting observation by David J. Kilcullen, a former Australian Army lieutenant colonel who is now a senior counterinsurgency adviser to Gen. David Petraeus in Iraq:

At present, the U.S. defense budget accounts for approximately half of total global defense spending, while the U.S. armed forces employ about 1.68 million uniformed members. By comparison, the State Department employs about 6,000 foreign service officers, while the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has about 2,000. In other words, the Department of Defense is about 210 times larger than USAID and State combinedâ€"there are substantially more people employed as musicians in Defense bands than in the entire foreign service.

(Hat tip: Foreign Policy's Passport blog, via Andrew Sullivan)