This text takes issue with arguments that security studies is a discipline of limited use in making sense of the post-Cold War world. It argues that many of the most interesting theoretical issues in international relations can most usefully be studied through a prism labelled security studies . The book combines chapters which provide a variety of critical perspectives on the discipline and address a diverse range of theoretical concerns, with chapters that examine such substantive issues as weapons proliferation and the changing meaning of security for actors in the erstwhile conflict between East and West.