Which Gap? – What Bridge?

The discourse around the bridging the gap debate is seen to a unique sub-set of the social sciences in the United States as applied to a unique American approach to security. This article looks beyond US National Security and the practices of the discipline of political science at US universities to address, and expand on, some specific ideas in Michael Desch’s volume The Cult of the Irrelevant. We offer that an integrative assessment of how scholarly work can best inform security policies and practices requires more critical examination in four domains: consideration of how different disciplines frame key issues and speak to each other; understanding the dynamics of the policy marketplace; assessments to alternate ways to frame security and national security; and requirements to critical challenge the privilege academics have awarded themselves as the purveyors (and gatekeepers) of ‘knowledge’ and the ‘truth’.