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This chapter highlights weapons-systems as a central aspect of the question: ‘Security how?’ Weapons are a central and pervasive aspect of the material, institutional, and discursive mobilizations of security. As such, weapons have long been both a tool and a measure of power. Weapons-politics reveals what we might think of as lethal legitimations: the legitimation of killing, the preparation for killing, and the distinctions (racial, colonial, gendered, religious, class, civilizational) that allow us to take for granted that killing is inherent to security. The chapter poses three questions about security and violence that arise through weapons-politics: Does the manner of violence matter? How are weapons controlled? How is weapons-politics entangled with other forms of violence and security? These questions show that weapons-systems are the materialization of violence of all types.

This chapter outlines the nine different questions we can ask in relation to security: who can ‘speak’ security; security for whom; security where; security when; security from what; security how; security why; security for what purpose; and security at whose expense? Asking some of these questions help to determine the context within which security is being mobilized, while others enable us to precisely identify what security does within a given socio-political order. The chapter uses the global drug war as an illustrative case study. By asking the nine security questions about the global drug war, the chapter shows how illicit drugs have been used as a pretext to reproduce racism, violence, and structural inequalities. As such, the chapter concludes by restating the importance of not taking security thinking at face value.

This chapter assesses the relevance of gender and sexuality for understanding how security/insecurity are distributed in the world. Our ideas about gender and sexuality—that men and women are the only genders, and that each gender has particular bodies, characteristics, and abilities—have been used for centuries to enact and justify the oppression of women and those who do not fit into this gender binary. As such, gender and sexuality form part of the unequal distribution of insecurity and violence we see in the world. The chapter looks at this topic bearing in mind specifically the following critical questions: security for whom, where, how, and at whose expense? To do so, it utilizes three key feminist concepts: intersectionality, the everyday, and transformation. The chapter argues that gender and sexuality help us gain a critical perspective of security/insecurity by revealing new areas of study, and helping us to see traditional security topics in a new light.

This chapter studies the connections between security and surveillance in order to discover how (in)security and violence are fostered by the digital. To do so, it is important to understand the digital in terms of datafication, computation, and materiality. These enable us to critically explore security through society and technology and tensions between the local and the global, while asking questions about the growing role of IT companies in our worlds. Datafication is at the core of modern statecraft—techniques for counting things and people allow authorities to maintain control over a population at a distance, imposing and collecting taxes that can be used to reinforce their military power. At the same time, showcasing the development of computing permits us to emphasize the key role of security imaginaries in shaping what is now called the digital age.

This chapter examines issues of gender and security. It begins with an explanation of what we mean by gender and explains why issues of gender are central to understanding security. International Relations specialists have over the last three decades explored and interpreted the ways in which men and women have responded to the national and international policies which have governed conflict, terrorism, and war. The chapter demonstrates that through understanding and placing notions of gender at the centre of any debate on security one can unleash a series of interlocking understandings of the way men and women relate to insecurity, violence, and war.

This chapter explains the terrorism of insurgents and rebels. Despite the magnitude of transnational terror attacks, most acts of terrorism around the globe are actually perpetrated by assailants that reside in the same country they target. Rebel organizations primarily use violence against civilians to help them achieve their war aims. These can be either political or social. Asymmetric insurgencies or guerrilla wars often use terror to keep members active, civil compliance, maintain territorial control, and demonstrate a state's inability to govern. Violent actors make strategic decisions about the types of violence they utilize during conflicts.

This chapter explores terrorism in context. It is difficult to make generalizations about terrorism and outline exactly what causes it. Terrorism as a term is most commonly used to describe violence which comes from below and is directed at the power of the state. That has indeed been the dominant usage during the last century and a half as we have seen successive waves of terrorism. But the form that such violence takes has varied widely so that terrorism has developed to have multiple meanings across time and in different contexts. Context remains crucial to the development of an understanding of terrorism in its many manifestations. The chapter considers a number of types of terrorism as defined by studies including lone wolf terrorism, transnational terrorism, and international terrorism.

This chapter discusses the history of terrorism. Terrorism, as it is understood in this chapter, is the deliberate use or threat of violence by non-state actors in order to achieve power and implement political goals. Historical studies help us to better understand the sheer complexity of terrorism from the past. The chapter looks into the gunpowder revolution in Europe. It cites David Rapoport's ‘Four Waves’ model and relates it to accounts of the historical evolution of modern anti-state terrorism since 1880. Rapoport's work has become the dominant explanation of the evolution of modern terrorism.