The history of international development of Afghanistan and Pakistan yields important lessons for the future of aid. Development assistance to both countries has been defined by geopolitical dynamics and Western attempts to contain global and transnational threats. This foreign policy strategy has yielded forms of bilateral assistance that integrates military strategy with development strategy, culminating in the emergence of new forms of multilateral military – development planning schemes to build the state. At the same time, the global agenda for aid calls for the integration of human rights into development agendas, prompting development agencies and institutions to establish strategies to advance human rights as a development objective. Within this context, capacity development has emerged as a cornerstone of global development strategy. In the previous chapter, I placed the progression of international development within the context of the political and economic reality of insurgency and transnational militancy in Afghanistan and Pakistan, tracing the evolution of transnational networks of resistance alongside the integration of development and military strategy.

I trace the transformation of the security– development nexus from a conflation of economic assistance and military aid as a single bilateral assistance package to Pakistan in the 1980s to contain the Soviet threat from Afghanistan and maintain a US presence in the region to the present-day integration of military and development assistance through counterinsurgency strategy and the innovation of PRTs in Afghanistan. I distinguish between the various forms of the security– development nexus as combining military and development aid as: