Abstract: The 2008 attacks on Mumbai were carried out by a Pakistani militant group known as Lashkar i-Taiba, termed a "non-state actor" by Pakistan's president, Asif Zardari. In most cases, violent non-state actors (VNSAs) rise as a state fails, resorting to organized attacks as a brutally effective method for advancing political aims and other goals. Currently operating in Afghanistan, Lebanon, Somalia, and Sudan, VNSAs can take the form of national liberation movements that confront an occupying force; insurgents engaged in protracted political and military struggles which eat away at the legitimacy of a ruling government; terrorists who use threats or violence to effect political change; irregular yet recognizable armed forces working within an ungoverned area or failing state; and mercenary militias, such as those used by Shell, or army-loaded units, which operate in the Niger Delta.The essays in this volume map the relationship between VNSAs and the state, following the political, economic, and social processes behind the emergence of these groups and the manipulation of these processes to trigger a crisis of the state. Contributors target the point at which violence becomes desirable to the non-state actor, investigating whether this change alters the relationship between VNSAs and the state, and they track the influence VNSAs have on rebuilding the governments they tear down. One of the first resources to describe these groups in full, this volume explains the internal structure of VNSAs, their recruitment strategies and leading ideologies, the characteristics and partnerships that allow them to adapt and prosper, and the fundamental similarities and differences between these groups.