What does it mean to be secure in the 21st century? Mark Beeson argues that some of the most influential ideas about national and even global security reflect untenable, anachronistic strategic views that are simply no longer appropriate for contemporary international circumstances. At a time when climate change poses an existential threat to the continuation of life itself, Beeson argues that there is an urgent need to rethink security priorities while we still can. Providing an explanation of the failures and dangers of the conventional wisdom, he outlines the case for a new approach that takes issues like environmental and human security seriously.At a time when environmental crises and global pandemics pose interconnected existential threats to the very continuation of life, we urgently need to rethink our security priorities. This book explains why insecurity has become such a ubiquitous feature of life in the 21st century and why policymakers, strategic analysts and many scholars are failing to recognise or address its underlying causes. Beeson, a leading expert in international relations, analyses the forces creating the epidemic of insecurity that is currently sweeping the world and argues that power politics and militarism are not going to help us cure it.