United Arab Emirates

Abu Dhabi’s arms show confirmed the importance of the defense industry for the UAE as a major customer and an emerging and credible player within the global arms trade.

As tensions with Iran are expected to ease under the Biden administration, the UAE’s economic ties and legacy relations position it to potentially play a pivotal role in Gulf outreach to Tehran.

The diverging priorities of Abu Dhabi and Dubai have given the UAE room to maneuver, and, increasingly, elements of the two emirates’ specific approaches are being consolidated within a unified strategy.

AGSIW hosted Athol Yates for a discussion of his book exploring the history of the UAE’s armed forces.

This report is based on the presentations and discussions during the UAE Security Forum 2020, “Resilient Economies, Resilient Societies,” held December 15-17, 2020 virtually.

Aspects of the Gulf conflict have trickled down to North Africa and fault lines have further hardened in various states due to their own internal political and socioeconomic dynamics.

Biden will likely put weapons sales to the Gulf on the back burner, but, at the end of the day, the administration’s positions on arms sales will reflect continuity, not change.

On January 19, AGSIW hosted a roundtable with H.E. Anwar Gargash, minister of state for foreign affairs of the United Arab Emirates.