The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) celebrated its one-hundredth birthday in 2021. Its durability poses a twofold question: How has the party survived thus far? And is its survival formula sustainable in the future? This Element argues that the CCP has displayed a continuous capacity for adaptation, most recently in response to the 1989 Tiananmen protests and the collapse of communism in Europe. As the CCP evaluated the lessons of 1989, it identified four threats to single-party rule: economic stagnation; socioeconomic discontent; ideological subversion; and political pluralism. These threats have led to adaptive responses: allowing more private activity; expansion of the social safety net; promotion of indigenous cultural production; and rival incorporation into the party. Although these responses have enabled the CCP to survive thus far, each is reaching its limit. As adaptation stagnates, the strategy has been to increase repression, which creates doubt about the ongoing viability of single-party rule.

How do we know when we are investing wisely in security? Answering this question requires investigating what things are worth securing (and why); what threatens them; how best to protect them; and how to think about it. Is it possible to protect them? How best go about protecting them? What trade-offs are involved in allocating resources to security problems? This book responds to these questions by stripping down our preconceptions and rebuilding an understanding of security from the ground up on the basis of a common-sense ontology and an explicit theory of value. It argues for a clear distinction between objective and subjective security threats, a non-anthropocentric understanding of security, and a particular hierarchy of security referents, looking closely at four in particular-the ecosphere, the state, culture, and individual human beings. The analysis will be of interest not only to students and scholars of International Relations, but also to practitioners.