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The purpose of US foreign assistance has shifted in the wake of 2001, and Washington has resurrected practices previously associated with police aid during the Cold War. In particular, the Bush administration has broadened the remit of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in such a way as to make it a quasi-security agency. The consequences of this could be significant for both USAID and democratic-style police assistance programmes more generally, for today’s threat-driven policies are part of a trend which in the past has had worrying consequences. Using the critical variable of public policing (which is illustrated by reference to developments in Kenya), I argue that using USAID to improve the counterterrorist capacity of Africa’s police in the pursuit of US national security objectives is a seriously flawed strateg