This chapter models and empirically tests the cross-national correlates of contemporary commerce raiding. The chapter theoretically examines how state capacity at the center influences the rate of pirate attacks in the territorial waters and Exclusive Economic Zones of states. But it also recognizes that several other conditions help drive ship attacks, including privation, target opportunity, armed conflict, and the labor supply. The empirical models control for these factors when assessing cross-national and over-time variation in maritime piracy. Using multiple measures of state capacity, the chapter shows that pirates gravitate toward states that are weak at the center. It also finds that countries with larger populations, longer coastlines, proximity to maritime choke points, and poor economic conditions witness more pirate attacks. The last section discusses how to move from national capacity in the analyses presented in this chapter to subnational capacity in the next two chapters.