During Tunisia's 2011 "Revolution for Dignity," protesters surrounded the Ministry of Interior chanting that it was a "terrorist ministry" and vowing to undo Tunisia's postcolonial police state, whose abuses grew entrenched during the presidency of Habib Bourguiba (1956-87) and worsened during the tenure of his successor, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali (1987-2011). Ten years of democratization in Tunisia, however, signally failed to reform Tunisia's police state. In 2021, a presidential self-coup enabled by Tunisia's security forces and military shut the elected parliament. By 2023, a new authoritarian, Kais Saied, was using the modalities and institutions of Tunisia's unreformed security sector to drag his critics from across the ideological spectrum before military courts and Anti-Terror Units on a scale not seen in Tunisia since the 1990s. What are the chief reasons why ten years of "democratic transition" in Tunisia failed to meaningfully reform its security sector? How is Kais Saied not just resurrecting, but also fundamentally reinventing the relationship between state and security forces in Tunisia? What role has Western support for counterterrorism measures, which escalated in Tunisia after jihadist attacks in 2013-2015, played in both processes? Answering these questions holds important value for scholars of security studies, securitization and terrorism studies, and the comparative study of democratic transitions and democracy breakdown in and beyond the MENA region. The case of Tunisia revises and helpfully broadens theoretical preconceptions in these literatures concerning, for instance, 1) the ability of newly democratizing countries to combine efforts towards security sector reform with elevated internal and external investments in counterterrorism, and 2) the ability of challenger parties to meaningfully shape security sector reform when they themselves have been primary victims of the security apparatuses most in need of reform. This paper draws on twelve years of cumulative ethnographic insights from researching Tunisia, during which time its author conducted over 500 interviews that related to security sector reform. It draws also on research in Tunisia since Saied's takeover in July 2021, during which time the author conducted over 200 interviews and spent over four months in the country spread across six different trips. It showcases insights gleaned from interviews with Tunisian police officers, military, and Ministry of Interior employees, with the political parties and NGOs many hoped would help reform them, and with Western embassies and analysis in and beyond Tunisia tasked with addressing these challenges.