Publisher's Synopsis
This work offers a theoretical critique of the closed and introspective approaches which both define and determine contemporary Australian defence and security policy. The basic assumptions of mainstream security thinking are critically assessed and existing orthodoxies and means of framing reality are challenged.;The authors call on policy makers, academics and others working on defence and security issues to think more critically and theoretically; to begin to ask some of the difficult and searching questions that are being raised in other disciplines; and finally to recognise and accept the contested and problematic nature of many of the concepts that they advance as if they were self-evident.