Abstract
The politics of aid and the effect aid strategies have on recipient populations has been a significant interest area in international politics and economics. While studies of this behaviour have tended to focus on economic or developmental impacts, the security implications of military based aid have enjoyed less attention. It is an important area as the transfer of military capacity from states to allies or allied non-state actors is having resurgence in the midst of new, intersecting proxy conflicts in the Middle East and Europe. This article questions whether military aid strategies can contribute to the conditions of political violence and terrorism that they are ostensibly intended to address. The study uses a structured within-case comparative analysis of two periods of recent Pakistani history in which the state has been both the recipient of massive influxes of US military aid, and a target for embargo from such programs. A modified human security framework is used to assess changes in the security environment for the recipient population in these two time periods with a focus on the frequency and intensity of political violence. It finds that in this particular case, military aid has correlated with the entrenchment of military power and increasing political violence within the recipient state.