This study addressed a gap in the existing literature on bilateral cooperation's relationship with foreign assistance and foreign direct investment. Specifically, how donor foreign assistance and foreign direct investment flows changed based on bilateral cooperation with recipient nations across diplomatic, economic, and military domains. Structured, focused comparison of two cases in the Horn of Africa allowed investigation of the relationships between donor and recipient nations. The first case was the United States as a donor nation from 1972 to 1982; the second was China as a donor nation from 2008 to 2018. The cross-case analysis used a quantitative examination of correlational and regression analysis between bilateral cooperation variables and aid and investment. For the United States during the Cold War, bilateral cooperation explained foreign assistance in more instances than foreign direct investment. For China from 2008 to 2018, the opposite held true. Those findings highlighted the danger of mirror imaging American experience with great power competition in the past to today's competition with China. It also showed that China's singular focus on economic cooperation, in some instances to the detriment of diplomatic cooperation, offers an opportunity for US engagement in the region.

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