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Some observers have been perplexed by perceived modifications within the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) overseas coverage on numerous fronts. The UAE’s rapprochement with Turkey, as an example, has been described as a “sea change” and a “reset” after what was depicted as a “decade-long period of muscular coverage.”
These supposed modifications, nevertheless, are extra constant than they might first seem and definitely don’t replicate the broader strategic route of the UAE. These coverage strikes will be higher understood by means of three “keys” that specify the UAE’s strategic map and its worldwide engagement.
Key 1: The networked world order
The primary key lies within the UAE’s understanding of the way in which worldwide relations have advanced within the twenty first century. The world order shouldn’t be uni-, bi-, and even multipolar, however somewhat networked. The idea of the top of the unipolar world and the Pax Americana was highlighted within the International Developments 2030 report produced by the Workplace of the Director of Nationwide Intelligence within the U.S. in December 2012.
Anne-Marie Slaughter and Fadi Chehadé have argued {that a} networked world order doesn’t entail the diffusion of sovereignty in a digital world, however somewhat a set of relations between states that aren’t primarily based merely on ideology or on binary techniques of alliances. As a substitute, a networked world order implies that states can have interaction in a number of relationships primarily based on nationwide and regional pursuits somewhat than affinity to 1 ideology or one other. This was, in any case, the promise of globalization.
The primary manifestation of such an understanding is a reversal of the idea of polarity. Polar world techniques presume a middle of political gravity that pulls states into the orbit of their sphere of affect. This isn’t the governing precept of worldwide relations in a networked world order although. As a substitute, facilities of gravity have been changed with nodes of connectivity.
The second manifestation is that the zero-sum calculus that underpinned the Chilly Struggle period is not the principle technique of working. Accordingly, the UAE’s financial relations with China don’t devalue its relationship with the USA. Nor does diplomatic engagement with Russia over Syria represent a departure from its strategic relations with the U.S., in the identical method that evolving ties with Saudi Arabia don’t recommend a withdrawal from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).
The third manifestation of a networked world order is the substitute of the idea of grand competitors with a method for “grand complementarity.” The UAE’s rapprochement with Turkey is an instance of a profitable transition from political competitors to financial complementarity. The identical will be mentioned of the UAE’s strategy to Iran. This explains how the UAE can develop relations with opposing international locations like Iran and Israel on the identical time — or India and Pakistan and Ethiopia and Eritrea.
Key 2: International connectivity agenda
The second secret’s the UAE’s connectivity agenda. That is primarily based on its understanding of the networked world order and its intention of extending connectivity corridors internationally.
The UAE’s connectivity agenda has its origins in its understanding of its geostrategic area. For the UAE, and the GCC international locations, the Arabian Peninsula, with the 4 seas surrounding it, encourages an engagement technique centered round regional connectivity. Every physique of water is a gateway to a strategic space. The UAE already has direct geographic entry to the Arabian Gulf and the Arabian Sea. But it surely has additionally developed strategic entry to the Purple Sea by means of its port operators and the Mediterranean by means of the East Med Gasoline Discussion board. Dubai Ports World’s (DPW) investments in services in West Africa, after growing ports within the Purple Sea and river terminals in Central Africa, illustrate how the UAE sees Africa as a gateway to South America. This enhances its diplomatic drive in South America, the place it has opened missions in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, Chile, Uruguay, and Peru, and plans to open one in Paraguay.
The UAE’s financial and diplomatic actions are primarily based on growing connectivity corridors that enable commerce between economies to stream seamlessly by means of the area.
These connectivity corridors are:
- Commerce routes to deal with flows of products and power: The investments in ports around the globe and in power manufacturing and distribution, together with oil, gasoline, and electrical energy, have been a significant space of growing connectivity. The UAE’s complete financial partnership agreements (CEPA) with India and Israel are the newest in a collection of such offers, with agreements with Turkey and the U.Ok. to comply with.
- Cash and finance: The UAE’s funding in banking companies and its institution of worldwide monetary markets to bridge the hole between these in China and the U.Ok. have been a part of this. There are actually 28 worldwide banks working within the UAE with 115 branches, together with digital banks like Zand and Wio.
- Folks: UAE funding in carriers, comparable to Emirates and Etihad (ranked amongst finest 20 on the planet), and airports (Dubai was the busiest airport for worldwide travels in February 2022) is an end result of its journey hub technique. This has additionally been complemented by insurance policies such because the introduction of multiple-entry visas, upon arrival transit visas, golden residency visas, and wider UAE passport choices, all of which contribute to creating the nation a significant route for transporting individuals.
- Information: Because the UAE invests within the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the significance of information assortment, storage, and transmission turns into important. UAE funding in 5G is a part of that connectivity agenda, together with funding in blockchain know-how, and types a part of its commerce, cash, and other people connectivity corridors.
To maintain these arteries of connectivity open, the UAE wanted three additional “enablers”:
- Tolerance: The UAE’s adherence to the precept of tolerance shouldn’t be merely an inner social engineering coverage, it additionally bolsters connectivity by means of de-escalation.
- Stability: The UAE’s emphasis on stability, somewhat than on political reforms, is a method to allow cooperation with out conditioning a political worth. Due to this fact, the main focus is on functioning governance establishments somewhat than political illustration. Stability turns into the primary enabler of funding and public-private partnerships as a method to offer improvement assist, together with political reform.
- Governance fashions somewhat than political techniques: Competent governance fashions enable for laws that helps higher connectivity both for enterprise, financial, or diplomatic ties. The UAE’s strategy to Syria is an instance of such a concentrate on growing governance that permits for cooperation that results in stabilization. The UAE’s effort to raise the suspension on Syria’s membership within the Arab League shouldn’t be an ethical place on the Syrian regime, however a sensible concentrate on sustaining Syrian governance constructions, together with financial ones, to stop a meltdown of bureaucratic technique of cooperation with any authorities, and additional escalation of the humanitarian scenario that impacts Syria’s neighbors.
The Dubai Expo 2020 is probably one of the best embodiment of the UAE’s imaginative and prescient for its international connectivity agenda and the kind of cooperation it seeks with the remainder of the world.
Key 3: State vs. non-state actors
The third key to understanding the UAE’s strategic map is its differentiation between state and non-state actors.
The UAE believes that the state is the important constructing block for international governance as embodied by the U.N. This precept has guided, and continues to information, its engagement throughout the globe. Accordingly, the UAE’s place on the Houthis, Hezbollah, the Widespread Mobilization Forces, and the Muslim Brotherhood isn’t any completely different than that towards al-Qaeda or ISIS. They’re all transnational non-state actors that haven’t any respect for state sovereignty and see themselves as above the nation. They violate the sovereignty of the state and act outdoors established codes of worldwide order and apply. This can be a main hindrance to state-to-state connectivity and subsequently represents a risk to the rules-based world order.
Conclusion
Making use of these keys to understanding the UAE’s engagement around the globe could assist to elucidate among the points that observers typically discover perplexing. The rationale the UAE participated within the coalition in opposition to the Houthis in Yemen, for instance, shouldn’t be attributable to its geographic proximity however somewhat its understanding of the Arabian Peninsula as its strategic neighborhood and its dedication to assist states in opposition to non-state actors.
The identical will be mentioned about its involvement in Afghanistan, the place it beforehand labored with the U.S. in opposition to the Taliban however has since labored with the Taliban to encourage them to change into a accountable state actor by means of their governance of Afghanistan.
This additionally explains why the UAE sees the Abraham Accords with Israel and different Arab states as a part of a region-wide connectivity agenda somewhat than merely a normalization settlement between two international locations.
These three keys can present a greater understanding of the UAE’s place on conflicts starting from Yemen to Ukraine, in addition to varied alternatives from China to South America. International locations like Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkey, India, and South Korea all display a shared understanding of the networked world order, the connectivity agenda, and the place towards non-state actors. The identical, surprisingly, can’t be mentioned concerning the U.S., EU, and even the U.Ok. The present place on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, although ethical and principled, can also be bringing again a bipolar world order and quickly eroding the globalized economic system that the U.S. has established because the fall of the Soviet Union. The UAE and others which have totally endorsed and invested in a globalized economic system are actually having a troublesome time coming to phrases with how shortly the unipolar world order that heralded globalization is falling aside.
Mohammed Baharoon is the Director Normal of the Dubai Public Coverage Analysis Middle (b’huth), established in 2002 in Dubai. The views expressed on this piece are his personal.
Picture by GIUSEPPE CACACE/AFP by way of Getty Photographs
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