This text provides a thorough overview of how states pursue security against violence, and how this pursuit paradoxically creates greater insecurity at the national, international, and individual levels. The traditional insistence that states are the primary and most important actors makes security, ultimately, elusive. This argument provides a compelling framework for students to understand the breadth and nuance of security at each level.

Case studies throughout the text bring life to the concepts. This fully revised third edition includes discussion of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, China and the Uyghurs, the Covid-19 pandemic, the January 6th Capitol insurrection, Trump's attempt to overturn the 2020 election; Mexico's use of its military in internal security, the coup in Myanmar, Orbán's Hungary, China and Taiwan, India and Pakistan, US-China competition, China's Belt and Road Initiative, Russia's Wagner Group, North Korea's missile testing, refugees in Poland, and numerous other examples, large and small.

The third edition features: