By Eric Vandenbroeck and co-workers
The UAE And Its Talest
Building In The World
For a long time, the
United Arab Emirates was known mostly for a boom-and-bust real estate market,
the consumerist glitz of Dubai, and vast oil resources. But over the last two
decades, the UAE’s reputation has undergone a dramatic shift. Under President
Mohammed bin Zayed, the UAE has spent billions of dollars building up and
modernizing its military, becoming what former U.S. Defense Secretary James
Mattis has dubbed “Little Sparta.”
The UAE has also made
itself the Middle East’s financial center. The country has forged working
relations with almost all the region’s actors, including Israel, as well as
with every worldwide power, particularly the United States.
The UAE has
clear ambitions: instead of being known primarily as a regional player,
the UAE wants to be more like Singapore, deploying global and
economic power dramatically disproportionate to its size and helping offset its
geographic vulnerability. To that end, the country has cut new trade deals,
invested in overseas projects, and turned itself into a tourist destination,
transportation, and logistics hub.
Should the UAE
deliver on its ambitions, analysts searching for an apt comparison may
have to look to the Medicis, the dynastic powerhouse
that ruled Florence from the fifteenth through the eighteenth centuries. The Medicis did not govern much territory and were never at the
center of Europe’s conflicts. However, the family became a major player by
using trade and banking to influence the larger empires in its neighborhood.
They established an enduring alliance with France, maintained strong
diplomatic ties with England, and fostered connections with the Holy Roman
Empire. Florence became a focal point for economic activity, scientific
discovery, and cultural achievement, including funding Galileo and
Michelangelo.
The UAE brings plenty
of advantages to this effort: a well-educated population, a location halfway
between the world’s biggest economies, substantial reserves of oil and gas,
and, relatedly, outlandish wealth. It has a secular governance model and, unlike
its neighbors, is relatively tolerant of different faiths. The UAE is part of
U.S. President Joe Biden’s vision for a Middle East economic corridor
that connects India and Europe. It has strong ties with other emerging middle
powers, such as Brazil, India, and Indonesia, thanks to its investments in
their markets. It has even normalized ties with Israel, a historic adversary.
And despite Hamas’s attack and the popular but contained outcry against the war
in Gaza, Israel, and the UAE are maintaining economic and diplomatic relations.
Yet the UAE is
nevertheless constrained in its quest for influence and power. It is highly
dependent on oil, and it is facing pressure to rapidly decarbonize.
It must fend off Islamic radicalism and regional instability. It has a
long-standing territorial dispute with Iran, whose proxies have attacked the
country. It faces stiff competition from its neighbor Qatar, with which it shares many features, and an even
more significant challenge from Saudi Arabia. Riyadh, led by Crown Prince
Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS, is also trying to become the Middle East’s
political, economic, and energy heavyweight. It is making investments
designed to diversify the economy and make the Saudi market more
attractive to foreign countries and companies. Many of these economic policies
could adversely affect the UAE’s status and ambitions.
The Medicis, of course, became and remained powerful
despite competition from bigger states. Their wealth, economic expertise, and
political influence allowed them to navigate international politics and
establish connections with influential figures and rulers across Europe.
However, the Medicis’ political influence declined as
family members fought among themselves, making it easier for external forces to
push the state around. Eventually, in 1737, the last Medici ruler died without
a male heir, and the dynasty ended.
The UAE could
encounter similar difficulties. Since it is also governed by a family, future
leaders might face competition from their brothers, uncles, and cousins. If a
president dies without naming a clear successor, such infighting could pull the
UAE in multiple directions. Predatory regional states could then take advantage
of the country’s dysfunction, using it to dislodge the UAE from its status as a
Middle Eastern leader.
The UAE could very
well be the source of its undoing. Its independent foreign policy, designed to
protect it from global tumult, often puts it at odds with its neighbors and the
United States. The government has supported militant proxies in foreign conflicts,
spreading instability. And the country’s efforts to diversify the economy away
from oil could flop, prompting the kind of stagnation that exposes leaders to
criticism from within.
For now, the UAE does
not seem to be at acute risk of experiencing the massive turbulence that undid
the Medicis. Mohammed bin Zayed, known
as MBZ, has made sure the family sticks together, ruling alongside his
five full brothers in a system that is based on consensus. The six brothers
have already agreed that MBZ’s son, Khaled bin Mohammed, will be his successor,
likely ensuring a smooth transition of power. As long as the family stays
unified and governs efficiently, the country should have the ability to punch
above its weight.
In the near term, a
powerful UAE could help the West. The country and the United
States are now longtime partners, and if Washington keeps promoting the
UAE’s security, the UAE will mostly help promote U.S. interests in the Middle
East. But in the long term, a strong UAE may not benefit anyone except the UAE.
The country is a transactional actor, and so it will switch allegiances as soon
as the global balance of power tips in Asia’s favor. The UAE, after all, does
not favor democracy, and it is not naturally aligned with the West. It has
built ties with China and maintained them with Russia, whose president it
happily welcomed to COP28. The UAE wants to use outside powers as it sees fit,
and so no outside power—above all the United States—can count on it to serve as
a proxy in the Middle East.
Out Of Many
The United Arab
Emirates was formally created in 1971, following the United Kingdom’s
announcement that it would withdraw from east of the Egyptian city of Suez in
1968. MBZ’s father, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan, the ruler of Abu Dhabi,
merged Abu Dhabi with Dubai and five other territories and became the resulting
country’s first president. Located between Iran and Saudi Arabia, the UAE was
immediately subject to competition between its much larger neighbors. But
Zayed, who ruled until he died in 2004, worked to balance the two heavyweights,
cooperating with its neighbors and staying neutral during conflicts, such as
the Iran-Iraq War.
The September 11
attacks shocked the government and compelled the UAE to adopt a more
aggressive posture. The fact that two of the hijackers were Emirati citizens
was a rude awakening, showing that passivity had allowed other actors—including
Islamist extremists—to operate within the UAE’s borders. As a result, the
country’s government began working to purge Emirati society of radical Islamist
influences. It issued rules that barred religious leaders from discussing
politics, and it prohibited known conservative or radical Islamists from
publishing their material. Educational reforms to overhaul the state’s
curricula away from Islamist influences, already underway,
accelerated. Under pressure from Washington, the state established elected
municipal councils.
The country’s
relationship with the United States was of new importance to the UAE, which saw
stronger U.S. ties as an antidote to managing regional security challenges.
Under MBZ, then the defense minister, the UAE began investing
more in its relationship with Washington, including by stepping up to fight
alongside U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan. Joining Washington’s
coalition had the added benefit of giving Emirati soldiers operational experience
and beginning to transform the UAE into a capable military power.
A decade later, as
protests broke out across the Arab world, MBZ and his brothers believed that
the Muslim Brotherhood was behind the unrest, and they feared that Islamists
would challenge their secular model of governance and foment dissent within
their country. When Bahrain was rocked by protests in February 2011,
the UAE quickly deployed 500 troops to Manama. Their soldiers, along
with Saudi troops, helped Bahrain put down the demonstrations. Bahrain’s
monarchy remained in place. At home, the UAE arrested members and activists
associated with Islah, an Emirati-based Islamist group it accused of organizing
a coup. The government designated the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist
organization in 2014 and drove all domestic remnants of the organization
underground. After Mohamed Morsi—a Muslim Brotherhood politician—freely won the
presidency in Egypt, the UAE helped sponsor the military coup that drove him
from power.
Biden speaking with MBZ in New Delhi, September 2023
Egypt helped shape
the UAE’s thinking in other ways. When the administration of U.S.
President Barack Obama did not defend Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak—Morsi’s
predecessor and a long-standing U.S. ally—as he faced overthrow, the UAE began
to conclude the United States was not committed to the Middle East’s security.
It was further disenchanted when Obama failed to enforce his infamous red line
against chemical weapons use in Syria. The UAE began diversifying its
political partnerships, including forging economic links with China. It also
started using its military to project hard power across the region and to
undermine Islamists.
To project such
power, the UAE took a page out of Iran’s playbook. In 2012, the UAE started
cultivating armed groups that were fighting against Islamists in Egypt, Libya,
Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, and Yemen. It also began lending these groups military,
financial, logistical, and diplomatic support. The interventions have prolonged
conflicts in each jurisdiction by making it hard for once-ascendant Islamist
groups, such as Egypt’s branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, to reestablish
dominance or challenge regional governments.
Its 2015 Yemen
intervention has provided an illustrative snapshot of how the UAE’s
interventions can play out. That year, the UAE joined an Arab coalition to
fight against the Iran-backed Houthis while also supporting the United States
in its fight against al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and the Islamic State
(also known as ISIS)—both of which have a presence in Yemen. The UAE also used
the civil war in Yemen to take on the locally based Muslim Brotherhood and
to support Yemen’s Southern Transitional Council, which has sought self-rule.
Throughout the war, tensions between the STC and the Saudi-backed government
resulted in a power struggle that drew resources away from the original fight
against the Houthis, who continued their northern dominance. The UAE’s 2020
withdrawal from Yemen paved the way for an internally recognized coalition
government that included the STC and cemented the group’s position of influence
in Socotra Island and on the southern coast. But the UAE’s five-year
involvement still helped worsen a war that has had and continues to have,
devastating humanitarian consequences.
Still, MBZ—who became
the UAE’s official leader after his older brother had a stroke in 2014—does not
appear overly concerned that Yemen has damaged his country’s reputation. He
knows that Western policymakers and their public tend to conflate political Islam
with jihadism. By prolonging conflicts and keeping the spotlight on Islamist
organizations, the UAE has been able to sell a self-serving narrative to
Western leaders: that it is holding the line against religious extremism. By
positioning itself as an enemy of extremism, the UAE has earned ongoing Western
support for expanding Emirati power.
Friends And Enemies
The UAE’s ambitions
have provoked opposition within its region especially. Its rivalry with Qatar,
another small monarchy flush with hydrocarbons, is particularly
stark. Qatar’s astonishing rise to prominence in the 1990s, following the
rapid development of its natural gas resources, has shown that rulers tolerant
of political Islam can also offer citizens a high quality of life. Qatar has
given haven to radical Islamist leaders and offered support to Muslim
Brotherhood groups, including Hamas’s political leadership and top Taliban
officials.
Tensions between
Qatar and the UAE ran high throughout the first decade of this century. But
they bubbled over during the Arab Spring. The UAE withdrew its ambassador
from Doha in 2014 over Qatar’s support for Islamist forces. Then, in 2017, the
UAE worked with Bahrain, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia to blockade Qatar until it
complied with 13 stringent demands. These included shutting down Al Jazeera
(the major international news organization funded by Qatar), downgrading ties
with Tehran, and closing a Turkish military base that Qatar has hosted since
2016.
The UAE believed that
faced with such an extensive regional boycott, Qatar would buckle. But the UAE
overestimated its clout, and the blockade backfired. Turkey provided food aid
and sent further military support to Qatar. Iran also sent food, and it allowed
Qatar Airways to use its airspace. And Qatar continued to cultivate new
economic partnerships and drew closer to the United States. Today, it is an
important interlocutor between Tehran and Washington and Israel and Hamas.
(Since the war in Gaza began, for instance, Qatar has helped negotiate the
release of Israeli and Palestinian prisoners.) The rest of the Gulf, meanwhile,
suffered. After three and a half punishing years, Saudi Arabia forced Bahrain,
Egypt, and the UAE to end the blockade, even though Qatar appeared not to have
given in to the demands.
The reversal also
showed that even Saudi Arabia, a traditional Emirati partner—one run by
MBZ’s distant relatives—is not always a good friend. Some of Saudi
Arabia’s national priorities are in direct tension with the UAE’s. The two
countries are locked in an escalating economic and scientific competition,
including over which Gulf state will dominate the tourism, trade, and space exploration industries.
They are also competing to diversify their economies away from fossil fuel
production. Saudi Arabia is desperately playing catch-up, having started the
race at least 30 years later than the UAE. But it has aggressively tried to
beat its neighbor. In 2021, for instance, it announced that international
businesses with Saudi government contracts would have to establish regional
headquarters in Riyadh by 2024 – a clear attempt
to get multinational companies to move their Middle East headquarters
out of the UAE.
The UAE has
found ways to fight back. It aligned its workweek with the Western one. (In
Saudi Arabia and most of the rest of the Middle East, the workweek starts on
Sunday.) It continues to promote its relative tolerance for different faiths, including by
opening a synagogue. It has even started granting citizenship or permanent
residence to some expatriates, a privilege that foreigners cannot obtain in
other Gulf states. And the UAE is still far ahead of Saudi Arabia in its
efforts to move away from oil dependence, even as Saudi Arabia attracts
international attention and investment for its diversification plans.
The UAE has also
worked to reinforce its partnership with the United States. Although the UAE
questioned U.S. commitments to its security, especially after the Obama
administration signed the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement (which MBZ believed
legitimized Tehran’s expansionist regional behavior), Washington remains the
UAE’s security provider of choice. Emirati leaders have worked to build
stronger ties with both the Democratic and the Republican Parties, as well as
their constituencies. It has, for example, spent millions on lobbying to
cultivate closer relationships with interest groups and former government
officials across the political spectrum. The UAE’s ultimate goal is a long-term
U.S.-Emirati bilateral security agreement that would create lasting security
guarantees and give it direct U.S. security protection. Right now, the UAE has
been negotiating a deal that, although short of the NATO-style agreement MBZ
envisioned, would provide defense collaboration if the UAE limits its
technological and security cooperation with China. But the UAE and the United
States remain far apart, and MBZ could be waiting for the results of the U.S.
election—in which President Donald Trump might be more compromising—before
signing on to anything.
Yet even a strong
security guarantee from Washington would not overcome Emirati inclinations to
hedge. MBZ and his brothers are still forging deeper connections with
Washington’s adversaries—and even some of the UAE’s traditional opponents. The
country let the Chinese company Huawei build its 5G cellular network and has
maintained a neutral posture between Russia and Ukraine, keeping an open line
of communication with the Kremlin and abstaining from a UN vote condemning the
war. It has allowed Russians to keep vacationing in Emirati cities and to park
their assets in Emirati banks; bilateral trade between Russia and the UAE
increased almost 68 percent in 2022. After Iranian proxies attacked ships
in the Persian Gulf and Saudi oil facilities in September 2019, the UAE
dispatched one of its leaders to Tehran to de-escalate tensions. These
discussions led the UAE to renew commercial ties with Iran. Today, the UAE is
the Islamic Republic’s largest regional trading partner.
The Burj Khalifa Tower, the tallest building in the
world, Dubai, December 2023
That did not,
however, stop Iranian proxies in Yemen from attacking Abu Dhabi’s airport in
January 2022. The strikes were a stark reminder that even de-escalating
tensions with Iran will not guarantee the UAE’s security. Partially as a
result, the Emirati leadership has simultaneously built a partnership with
Israel. In 2020, it signed the Abraham Accords, normalizing ties with
Israel for the first time in history. And unlike Jordan, one of the few other
Arab states that has full relations with Israel, the UAE did not recall its
ambassador after the war in Gaza began.
The Abraham Accords
were a watershed moment, one that demonstrated just how focused the UAE is on
realpolitik instead of Arab or regional causes, including the future of the
Palestinians. Instead, they reflect the overlapping interests of the UAE and
Israel, such as a shared concern that the United States would no longer assist
them if Iran attacked. They also reflect shared concerns about the danger
of Iran’s proxies, the risks of Islamic radicalism, and the dangers that come
from armed Islamic groups such as Hamas.
It is not surprising,
then, that the UAE hopes Hamas—which has Muslim Brotherhood links—will be
displaced from Gaza. The war has made clear that the UAE’s strategy remains
vulnerable to its geography, and it knows that Islamists are a regional threat.
That is why, since the start of the war, the UAE has reaffirmed its ties
with Israel. They remain part of its broader strategic plan.
Still, the UAE was
taken aback by Israel’s military response. It has therefore used its UN
Security Council position to lobby for a cease-fire and humanitarian aid.
Without a cease-fire in hand, the UAE (like most regional states) has refused
to take part in or support discussions for what should come after the war,
leaving the Biden administration to take the lead. But behind the scenes, the
country has a plan. It wants Muhammad Dahlan, a former leader in the
Palestinian Authority, to then run the territory. It will likely use its
influence with Israel to push for Dahlan to take charge, even though Dahlan is
a highly controversial figure. It will also want to address Iran’s role as a
patron of Hamas and to weaken Iran’s network of proxies—including the Houthis,
who have disrupted shipping in the Red Sea.
Trust The Process
The Abraham Accords
have already led to increased defense cooperation between the UAE and Israel.
But they are designed to do more than just bolster
security. They are also supposed to help UAE’s
economy. The agreement created bilateral economic,
technological, and commercial opportunities in a variety of industries,
including energy, tourism, health care, and ports. It prompted the
UAE to lift visa restrictions on Israelis and to sign a free
trade agreement with the Israeli government. The accords have also helped the UAE develop deeper economic relations
with the United States and could therefore link the UAE to supply chains beyond
the Middle East. All in all, the deal is supposed to boost trade to $4 billion
within five years.
So far, however, the
tangible benefits of the deal are uncertain. There are not yet any estimates of
how much economic growth the deal has produced, and Emiratis have been
reluctant to build people-to-people exchanges with Israelis. The war
will make integration between the states even more difficult. And the UAE’s
relations with Israel have not exactly been a boon for democratic politics.
The UAE nefariously used Israeli-produced Pegasus spyware to hack
dissidents, journalists, and, according to The Guardian, the phone
of former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
It is difficult to
say how much the country’s autocratic behavior is a vulnerability for the
government. There is very little data about Emirati public opinion, and it is
hard to know whose opinion even matters to the government; over 90 percent of
the UAE’s residents are not citizens. But the government made it very
clear during COP28 that it will brook no sign of dissent. Authorities charged
87 Emirati activists with terrorism offenses for staging a series of peaceful
protests, many of whom are already in prison (and have been for almost a
decade), even though the whole world was watching. The UAE, it seems, does not
worry much about the optics of being a repressive state.
The UAE might have
been more concerned about how its crackdown looked if the protests had been
larger. Yet in general, Emirati citizens appear content with the affluence and
comfort their state offers relative to elsewhere in the Middle East. Although
poorer citizens from the northern Emirates who have lost loved ones fighting in
Yemen have expressed some discontent, it is not nearly enough to challenge the
government.
That most of the
population is made up of foreigners could create future challenges for the
country’s rulers. The UAE has a population of 9.3 million, of which some
665,145 are UAE nationals. The remaining 8.7 million are migrant workers, most
of whom are temporary contract workers drawn from South Asia and Southeast
Asia. These workers arrive under a temporary guest worker program and become
part of the infamous kafala (sponsorship) labor system, which
has been widely criticized by international rights groups for exposing migrant
workers to abuse. Activists have documented exploitative working conditions,
overcrowded living accommodations, restrictions on freedom to organize and
bargain collectively, and withheld salaries. Although UAE authorities have introduced
several laws to address these problems, they are rarely implemented, and the
pattern of exploitation persists. Workers, for example, continue to frequently
report sexual abuse. As a result, home governments, such as the Philippines,
have sometimes prevented female workers from being recruited by the UAE. But
these bans are short-lived, as the need for remittances prevails. It therefore
seems unlikely that these workers will seriously undermine the government, at
least shortly.
In 2010, Abu Dhabi
released UAE Vision 2021, its agenda for improving the country’s education,
technological development, infrastructure, and overall economy. Since then, the
UAE has expanded its universities, airports, and downtowns; established the Middle
East’s premier space program; overhauled its tax system; and created new,
longer-term visas aimed at attracting highly skilled workers. Still, in several
critical areas, the plan has come up short. The country failed, for example, to
introduce labor reforms that would make it easier for workers to switch
employers (and thereby push up wages), and it has not done enough to get
Emirati citizens into the workforce. Although the UAE is less dependent on
oil today than it was in the past, oil rents still account for 15 percent of
the economy. Its banking and tourism industries—which the UAE sees as the
country’s future—remain strong, but they are under growing pressure from
regional competitors such as the Saudis.
The UAE has a new
plan—Vision 2071—that serves as a more ambitious version of Vision 2021. This
time, the state says it will invest more in health care, education, and
tech industries to diversify the economy. It also claims that it will work
harder to move away from fossil fuels. At COP28, the UAE helped get nearly 200
countries to agree to transition away from carbon. Yet there are reasons to
doubt the UAE’s sincerity. The country has committed to increasing investment
in its fossil fuel industry in the near term, and when it comes to fighting
climate change, the UAE is investing almost exclusively in technologies such as
carbon capture, which are designed to extend the longevity of the oil sector.
To make its 2071 Vision a reality, the UAE will need to be more serious about
climate change. It will also need to make real investments in improving the
productivity of its citizens and shoring up its security.
Stayin’ Alive
MBZ’s vision for the future
is rooted in a simple imperative: survival. The Middle East presents a harsh
and unforgiving security environment, and as a small state,
the UAE is especially vulnerable to turmoil. Securing the
sustainability of family rule and the longevity of the UAE
may therefore require both more wealth and more power.
So far, MBZ has
played his hand effectively. The UAE has become a case study for how small
states can play an outsize role in international politics and economics, much
as the Medicis did. But the Medicis
also fell apart as the family lost its unity and shared vision. As the
centuries passed, inheritance and succession disputes, along with internal
feuding factions, weakened its control. Meanwhile, the rise of other powerful
families in Italy challenged Medici supremacy and other nearby city-states
gained power and further diminished the Medicis’
political leverage. Eventually, with less talented leaders at the helm, the
family suffered significant financial and political losses that led to the
dynasty’s demise.
MBZ and his brothers
face many of the same tensions that eventually led to the Medicis’
collapse. The family gets along well now, but it has a history of infighting.
It is surrounded by other assertive regional states, and local
conflicts could spill over into its boundaries. The UAE also faces challenges
the Medicis did not have. As MBZ well knows, the
United States may not always be a good security partner. And in the long term,
climate change could lead to extreme temperatures and droughts that make the Arabian
Peninsula uninhabitable.
Fulfilling its global
ambitions will help the UAE survive these challenges, in particular its pivot
away from the oil industry. But ultimately, the best way the country can stay
alive is by coming to terms with its geography. Although the UAE might seem ahead
of its neighbors now, many states are hot on its tail and undermining its
security. As a result, rather than trying to hinge
itself beyond the region, the country’s long-term security and economic
interests will be better served by a stronger regional security framework—a
process that requires deeper regional integration and more effective conflict
resolution mechanisms. Family infighting may eventually bring about the
demise of the UAE—nothing lasts forever—but unless it comes to grips with its geography,
living in a rough neighborhood dwarfed by hegemonic powers on all sides will
undo it first.
Ultimately, this
means the UAE must accept that no matter how much it projects its power, it
will always be penned in by Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. The seven emirates
cannot escape their physical limitations, and their external partners—however
much they pledge support—will not endlessly safeguard the country. Future
historians may well compare the Medicis with the al-Nahyans. But the state will have to make it to, and then
past, 2071 first.
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