At the start of 2006, two schools of thought contended over the future of Australia’s defence and strategic policy. On one side stood those who believed that Australia’s principal strategic risks and challenges over the following decades would come from instability on the margins of the international order – from weak and failing states, and from non-state actors, especially terrorists. On the other side stood those who believed that bigger and more important strategic concerns arose from the possibility that the core of the international order would be disrupted by the stresses flowing from changing economic relativities. This was especially true in Asia, as China and other Asian states’ economies grew.