The UAE has been testing the limits of its alliance with the U.S. by establishing stronger relations with both China and Russia.

By Marcus Salles
UK Political Analyst

The United States was among the first countries to recognize the independence of the United Arab Emirates in 1971, and the two nations have maintained close relations ever sense. However, there are signs that the UAE’s attention is turning toward building relations with Russia and China, perhaps to Washington’s detriment.

U.S.-UAE Relations Since the 1970s

Going back to the early 1970s, the U.S.-UAE relationship has been one of the most stable in the world. The two countries established formal diplomatic relations in 1972, and their bilateral cooperation has since turned stronger. Both have been partners in defence, non-proliferation, trade, and law enforcement. With vast oil and gas reserves, the UAE became the Middle East’s single largest exporter to the U.S. Washington, for its part, provided the UAE with protection from external aggression, especially Iran, toward which both the U.S. and UAE share a common enmity.

In recent years, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nayhan (MBZ)—the de facto leader of the UAE—has relied on the U.S.-UAE alliance to support his expansionist aims in the region. He’s used American expertise to improve the training of the UAE military and former U.S. spies to expand its intelligence service. From 2007-2010, Prince Mohammed spent huge amounts on acquiring weapons—80 F-16 fighters, 62 French Mirage jets and 30 Apache combat helicopters. This was more Western arms than were purchased over that period by the other five Gulf Cooperation Council states combined.

Still more recently, the U.S. has begun deploying its aircraft at Al Dhafra Air Base in Abu Dhabi. In 2014, the United States began supplying more fighter jets as well as bombs to assist the UAE’s mission in Iraq and Syria. Today, America is backing the Emirates’ intervention in Libya. It has provided weapons, intelligence, and other support to the Saudi-UAE led coalition fighting in Yemen, causing the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. That conflict has gotten so out of hand that the UAE announced earlier this month that it’s partially withdrawing from Yemen.

A 2017 report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute found that more than half of U.S. arm exports went to the Middle East. Saudi Arabia and the UAE were two of the top five customers for U.S. arms makers. Moreover, a number of U.S. Officials have provided military and/or intelligence assistance to the UAE in the past—sometimes crossing moral and legal boundaries to do so.

In return, the Gulf nation has not just supplied oil to Washington, but has also supported U.S. operations in the region. In 2003 it became the first Middle Eastern country to assist the U.S.-led mission in Afghanistan by deploying 1200 Presidential Guard forces as part of the international coalition battling the Taliban. The Emirati troops remained in Afghanistan until 2014. Moreover, the UAE also made available its military facilities for U.S. and allied use after the September 2001 attacks by al-Qaeda in the U.S.

However, the U.S.-UAE alliance may now be on the verge of decaying, as the UAE’s interests have spread in several directions. The U.S. is no longer Abu Dhabi’s sole focus. The UAE has remained clear in terms of its needs, which involve maintaining strategic ties with the not only the U.S. but also its largest geopolitical rivals—China and Russia.

China and the UAE Drawing Closer

China and the U.S. have had a rocky relationship in multiple areas, especially in the trade sphere. While Donald Trump continues to impose tariffs on Chinese imports, Beijing has been working on attaining greater support from the rest of the world. It has increasingly been successful through its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Alongside many other countries across Asia, Africa, and Europe, the UAE is set to play a big role in China’s BRI.

On April 27, 2019, the ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, concluded a partnership in the BRI. He announced that the deal would potentially boost the current $53 billion bilateral China-Dubai trade to $70 billion by 2020. China has also established a strong foothold in the UAE. Dubai’s tribute to the Chinese New Year, held each of the past two years, is a testimony to their growing camaraderie.

In December 2015, Mohammed bin Zayed visited China in a trip that marked a significant leap forward in China-UAE relations. He signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Chinese President Xi Jinping to launch a significant investment cooperation fund worth $10 billion. Xi visited the UAE in July 2018, and the relationship escalated from mere bilateral cooperation to a comprehensive strategic partnership. The two nations announced 13 agreements and MoUs, including approval for first Chinese state-owned financial services firm to set up in Abu Dhabi Global Market. The China National Petroleum Corporation and Abu Dhabi National Oil Company also agreed to explore joint business opportunities. UAE President Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan even awarded Xi the Order of Zayed—the Emirates’ highest civil decoration.

China has also been facilitating the UAE’s needs better than the U.S. in terms of regional issues. The U.S. Conventional Arms Transfer (CAT) policy restricts the Pentagon from supplying armed drone technology to its Arab ally. On the other hand, China is happy to sell weaponized drones under its “no questions asked” policy. The UAE purchased its first Chinese drone, the Wing Loong I, in 2016, and reportedly upgraded to the more advanced Wing Loong II in early 2018. These Chinese drones are also less expensive than their U.S. counterparts, costing roughly $1 million per drone compared with $5 million for U.S. drones.

In July 2017, The Wall Street Journal reported that Chinese surveillance and strike drones were being used by both UAE and Saudi Arabia in Yemen. A former Pentagon official and president of the U.S.-UAE Business Council, Danny Sebright, stated that the Emiratis bought Chinese drones and equipped them with South African laser targeting systems. Those targeting systems are used to guide missile strikes from manned aircraft. According to satellite images, the UAE has also used these drones to support Haftar in Libya.

President Trump has recently taken steps to try to shift Saudi and Emirati weapons purchases back toward the U.S. On May 23, the Trump administration announced that it would sell $8.1 billion worth of munitions, aircraft parts, and other supplies to Saudi Arabia and the UAE without congressional approval. However, on July 17, the U.S. House of Representatives joined the Senate and voted to block the arms sales.

The UAE has also been engaging with a controversial military contractor, Erik Prince, the bother of U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DaVos. He has allegedly been a link between China and the UAE. Prince is accused of assisting Chinese security forces in their ethnic cleansing cleansing campaign against the Uighurs and of aiding Emirati troops in their operations in Yemen.

China has also surpassed the US in providing artificial intelligence technologies to the UAE. While such technology faces escalated scrutiny in the U.S., Chinese firms like Hikvision and Huawei have been marketing biometric surveillance systems to the Gulf nation, which has made heavy investments in surveillance technology and has been using cellphone hacking software to spy on journalists and dissidents.

Moreover, several Chinese firms have also been making large investments in the Khalifa Industrial Zone Abu Dhabi (KIZAD) over the last two years. Earlier this month, the East Hope Group of China proposed an investment of $10 million, which would be implemented in three stages over 15 years.

An Emerging Russia-UAE Axis

Russia has been another significant rival of the United States and is also an emerging major ally of the UAE. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Mohammed bin Zayed are reported to frequently speak by telephone, discussing their relationship and coordination on international issues of mutual interest. In June 2018, the MbZ visited Moscow with a delegation. Apart from discussing cooperation, the two nations also signed a declarationof strategic partnership in all domains. MbZ said it was crucial to “maintain a continuous coordination with Russia on regional issues to ensure security and stability.”

Russia, too, has been supplying weapons to the UAE, indirectly backing the Emirates’ interests in war-torn nations like Yemen and Libya. Russia is one of the three main global producers of advanced fighter jets, along with China and the U.S., and the UAE has a substantial interest in acquiring high-end fighters. Among the three producers, the U.S. has not produced a high-end fourth-generation heavy fighter, has restricted the export of its fourth generation platform, the F-15C, to three clients, and has imposed a complete ban on the export of its fifth-generation platform, the F-22.

The UAE has inquired about purchasing the fifth-generation F-35, but the U.S. has consistently rebuffed its requests. China, on the other hand, has remained unwilling to sell off its own air superiority platforms. Because of that, Russia has come to hold a monopoly in fourth-generation air superiority fighters, such as the Su-30 and Su-35. In February 2017, Russia signed an agreement to sell multiple Sukhoi Su-35 Flanker-E fighter jets to the UAE, and help it develop a fifth generation platform for its air force. At the time, the Gulf nation also awarded a $708 million contract for anti-armor missiles to the Russian agency Rosoboronexport, during the International Defence Exhibition and Conference in 2017.

According to the Congressional Research Service, the growing partnership between the UAE and Russia could be the Emirates’ way of gaining U.S. concessions on F-35s and other possible transactions. This analysis proved accurate earlier this year, when the U.S. deployed F-35A Lightning II stealth fighters to Al Dhafra Air Base in the UAE. On April 30, the U.S. Air Force conducted airstrikes against an Islamic State tunnel network in Iraq from Al Dhafra, using the F-35 in combat for the first time.

But UAE-Russian relations continue to develop. Trade between the two nations increased by nearly 35 per cent over two years, from around $161 million in 2015 to $217 million in 2017. Earlier this month, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak, met Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, UAE minister of state and head of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), to discuss cooperation in LNG projects in Moscow.

While the Trump administration is engaged in a contest for global influence with China and Russia, these U.S. competitors have been finding ways to establish strong relations with the Gulf states. Arms sales are only part of the story. In trade, energy, investment, diplomatic as well as cooperative relations, the UAE is expanding its relations with both Moscow and Beijing.

The UAE has been testing the limits of its alliance with the U.S. by establishing stronger relations with both China and Russia. While U.S. policy helps to explain the UAE’s shifting allegiances, it is also the case that the UAE’s interests are better served when it can strengthen its strategic partnerships with other world powers.

Originally published by LobeLog, 07.23.2019, based at the Institute for Policy Studies, a program of Open Society Foundations, under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported license.