Many scholars have suggested that Japan aligned its foreign policy with the US War on Terror. Part of Japan's alignment is said to have involved disbursement of foreign aid to support the US in Afghanistan and Iraq, and with other security interests associated with the War on Terror. To date, however, there has been little empirical study of this question. Employing a data set on Japanese aid to 133 countries between 1995 and 2008, we examine the War on Terror and Japanese ODA. We find that Japanese aid was aligned with some security interests in the War on Terror, but the effects were mixed.
