Facets of Security in the United Arab Emirates

William Gueraiche, Kristian Alexander, William Gueraiche, Kristian Alexander, WILLIAM GUERAICHE, WILLIAM GUERAICHE, Kristian Alexander

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9780367458218
• eBook ISBN: 9781000532722
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: American Government
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has elaborated its own philosophy of security. Driven by emergencies and increasing risks, both in the region and globally, Emirati authorities have developed a sense of anticipation as well as an agility to react promptly to new threats through the ability to assess the risks in any given situation. War and the avatars of conflict are a constant reality in the Middle East. Transnational threats, including the regional context, the war in Yemen, insecurity in the Levant and tensions with Iran affect the overall stability of the Peninsula and consequently that of the UAE. Owing to the inclusion of the UAE in the networks of globalization, non-traditional security issues are not relegated to the background. Issues such as COVID-19, immigration, cybersecurity and human trafficking need to be addressed domestically as well as globally.

This volume offers a comprehensive and multifaceted examination of the traditional and non-traditional security measures present in the UAE that allow the country to remain politically stable in an otherwise volatile region, and aims to offer a comprehensive overview of all forms of security in the UAE.

1 Introduction

The UAE at the crossroads of traditional and non-traditional security

William Guéraiche

DOI: 10.4324/9781003025566-1

In the Millennium Report, Kofi Annan, the Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN), associated peace with security, thereby reframing the missions of the UN. According Annan, the concept of security evolves continually. Having become associated with wars, mostly interstate wars during the Cold War era, the UN’s scope has grown to encompass new domains such as the protection of communities and individuals from internal conflict. Kofi Annan pleaded therefore for a ‘more human-centred approach to security’ (Annan 2000: 11, 13, 44). If the UN has followed a global evolution, some countries such as the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have led the way in making this approach part and parcel of domestic and foreign policy to advance security.

Security perception and history

Given the location of the UAE in the Middle East, scholars of security studies have examined the succession of events through a traditional lens. They have neglected the human aspect of the issue of security, especially in areas seen through the lens of East/West or North/South. The leading Emirati decision-makers who are today above the age of 50 have had in mind a human-centred experience, ingrained in their culture, that impacts their perception of the risks. Prior to the modernization of the country, the Bedouin lifestyle and the early years after independence gave meaning to ‘vulnerability’. In addition, although it might look like an administrative task on the surface, the regulation of the influx of migrants has also determined the making of national security.

Recent UAE history can be understood as a country seeking to alleviate the insecurity of daily life. During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the inhabitants of the Trucial States (Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Umm al-Qaiwain, Ajman and Fujairah) ‘experienced a harsh and elemental existence that formed and sustained the tribal nature of the society’ (Rugh 2007: 5). The discovery of oil in the mid-twentieth century, the basis of the area’s modern prosperity, disrupted the inhabitants’ hitherto frugal lifestyle but also the way in which tribal leaders conducted politics and gathered their people together to face threats. Throughout the twentieth century the British protectorate supported peaceful successions among the ruling families. While any new ruler was primus inter pares, the colonizers empowered succession through the direct line, thereby giving more legitimacy to the entrenched ruling families. Lingering feudal fights between the potential rulers ceased. When colonial tutelage ended, the nascent federation faced a threat of a new kind. The six (later seven) emirates became prey for two of their powerful neighbours. Four days before the proclamation of independence, on 29 November 1971, the Iranians invaded three islands of contested sovereignty, which had formerly fallen under the umbrella of the emirates of Ras al-Khaimah and Sharjah. But the main threat to the young federation stemmed from Saudi Arabia. At the time of independence, British observers were concerned about the new state’s capacity to survive in a hostile environment and especially about Saudi Arabia’s ambitions on the Abu Dhabi oilfields (Guéraiche 2014). Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the first president of the UAE and the ruler of Abu Dhabi, had no army and no administration. Among the Emiratis, he is remembered as the founder of the Emirati nation, a visionary who ‘turned the desert green’. However, his efforts to maintain territorial integrity and safety that are now taken for granted are largely forgotten. His personality inspired the guidelines of the UAE’s foreign policy: peace and conciliation rather than war. Nonetheless, the foreign policy of the federal government also reflected the fact that Sheikh Zayed had little room for manoeuvre. Step by step, the making of a national army, the Treaty of Jeddah with Saudi Arabia in 1976 and the signing of defence agreements with Western military powers alleviated the risk of invasion. Having made the country secure, it then needed regional stability. Although Sheikh Rashid bin Said Al Maktoum paved the way for the long-term development of Dubai the emirate needed a stable peace in the region. The development of Dubai steadily gained momentum after the Iran–Iraq war (1980–86). The sound of heavy artillery hampered economic prosperity (Guéraiche 2017: 11–31).

The regulation of the foreign workforce has also deeply influenced the national conception of security. In 1975, with a population of 292,400, 84% of the people living in the UAE were non-nationals, the highest proportion of foreigners in any of the Gulf states. Following the lead of the British authorities prior to 1971, the federation monitored the 42,000 Palestinians and Egyptians resident in the country. Their presence was pivotal for the economy inasmuch as they occupied mid- as well as upper-level positions in the administration and in the private sector. Together with the other Arab nationals, the foreign Arab community increased to more than 60,000. Some of these migrants adhered to latent revolutionary ideologies such as Nasserism or Baath Pan-Arabism – the roots of radical Islam conveyed by the offshoots of the Muslim Brotherhood were still shallow at the time. To prevent any political trouble, the federation reoriented its migration policy in the 1980s and 1990s. The ‘Asianization’ of the labour force alleviated the risks of political turmoil and created numerous advantages. Indians, Pakistanis and Filipinos spoke English and were more docile than their Arab counterparts. They accepted the jobs that the Arabs did not want. However, they were not entitled to apply for Emirati citizenship (Guéraiche 2017: 139–44). Against this backdrop, the Emiratis made fundamental changes to the kafala (sponsorship) system that can trace its origins to Islamic tradition as a means of bolstering economic and political security (Beaugé 1986). Under the kafala system, a local citizen or local company (the kafeel) must sponsor foreign workers in order for their work visas and residency to be valid. This means that an individual’s right to work and legal presence is dependent on his or her employer. In other words, migrants are guests for the duration of their stay in the country – just as an outsider would have been allowed to join a Bedouin tribe for a limited period of time. Today, the legal regulations are flexible and allow the federation to monitor the labour force according to its needs (Guéraiche 2016). From the Emiratis’ point of view, the migrants are in the country for a limited period. Preventing foreigners from becoming permanent residents of the country is a matter of security. It reinforces the idea that although foreign workers outnumber the Emirati nationals (there are 9 million foreign workers for every 1 million Emiratis) ultimately the Emiratis control the lives of these foreigners.

As a result, unlike the Western Westphalian states, which have a long history of interstate conflict as well as many centuries of state administrative experience, the UAE elaborated its own philosophy of security. Driven by emergencies and increasing risks, the authorities have developed a certain sense of anticipation, and an agility to react promptly to threats. It is a mindset, an aptitude to assess the risks in any given situation as well as a process. This securitization process has been integrated following the pattern of the Copenhagen School (Wæver 1993; Buzan et al. 1998) but with local arrangements integrating new securitizing actors (the recruitment agencies for migrants in the case of immigration, for example) or customized communication with the Emiratis and the residents. The solutions, for instance for immigration control, blur the traditional lines. The territory does not determine a divide between domestic and foreign issues. Immigration is both a domestic and a foreign policy issue. Beyond the scope of traditional security (neo-realist) studies, the majority of the contributors to this volume take into consideration non-traditional security aspects whose origins are largely transnational (Caballero-Anthony 2016: 5). In Sections 1 and 3 there is a shift away from a state-centric and military focus, but Section 2 does not underestimate these related issues.

The original features of security in the UAE should not cause the more traditional security issues to be neglected. Some form of war is a constant reality in the Middle East. All modern avatars of conflicts such as cyberwarfare could be easily adopted by the decision-makers in the region. Indeed, cyberwarfare adds a layer of threat and intervention to the already complex inter-communitarian state/non-state actors’ relations. Proxy wars, inherited from the past, have never completely disappeared from the region and are still one of the main causes of instability (Akbarzadeh and Ibrahimi 2019). Thus, the war in Yemen, insecurity in the Levant, and tensions with Iran have an immediate effect on the overall stability of the region. The principle of reality does not necessitate a single realist perspective on the geopolitics of the region. But, as Alan Collins notes, realism is not one approach but a set of approaches (2016: 4–5). The contributors to this section deconstruct the tensions by shedding light on the pillars of stability (structures, objectives of the states, etc.). Each of them, from a particular angle, seeks to make sense of apparently erratic events.

Part I:Thinking about security issues

Part I of this volume, ‘Thinking about security issues’, tries to understand the idiosyncrasies of the UAE case study from both a theoretical and a grassroots point of view. In Chapter 2, Michal Matyasik and Wojciech Michnik reposition the UAE in the academic field of International Relations and examine the different schools of thought, from realism to constructivism. In addition, they confront concepts such as securitization, security dilemmas, and regional security complexes to see which best characterizes the federation in the regional or global context. In Chapter 3, Athol Yates describes the ‘machinery of government’ and deconstructs the layers of the national security edifice. The different structures encapsulate the convergent or divergent conceptions of security within the administration in the federal state and in the local governments (according to the Constitution, each emirate has retained the right to edict rules).

The structure of the book follows three scales of analysis starting from the transnational threats to the more obvious domestic issues. Generally, the focus is on the regional level.

Part II: Transnational threats

Part II looks at transnational threats. These are defined by the permeability of national borders. Although such threats are usually not of the physical kind, they originate abroad but then materialize in the UAE. Inasmuch as these threats are ‘man-made’ (i.e. they are not related to natural causes), they are linked to networks of identifiable actors (international criminals, extremists, etc.) or are part of a complex system linking different regions of the world (the oil trade, food security, etc.).

Environmental change epitomizes these new man-made threats that affect the global population. Climate change is associated with the carbon footprint and therefore fossil fuel consumption. In Chapter 4, Mari Luomi examines the consequences of environmental security, or insecurity, in an oil-producing country that is making the transition towards cleaner energy sources for its own consumption.

Chapters 5, 6 and 7 deal with major organized crime. Tenia Kyriazi reminds us that the UAE is entangled in a vast traffic of human beings. Trafficking for sexual exploitation and labour exploitation are the most prevalent issues in the country. In collaboration with the international community, the UAE has taken action and has developed awareness campaigns to eliminate human exploitation. Terrorism is of paramount concern to the Emirati authorities. The national media regularly report attacks perpetrated in neighbouring countries. Kristian Alexander and Ebrahim El-Harbi point out that the mega malls, skyscrapers and large numbers of international tourists in Dubai and Abu Dhabi could be the perfect target for terrorists. Yet there is a contrast between the ongoing tensions in the Middle East and North Africa and the general perception that the UAE is one of the safest locations in the world. Terrorism implies counter-terrorism and the authorities have defined pre-emptive and multifaceted policies to contain this major risk. Cyber security now mobilizes as many resources as does terrorism. Cyberattacks stem from a variety of causes, ranging from the transition towards smart cities to the exploitation of loopholes in cyberspace. However, the digitalization of the human lifestyle and the economy poses new sets of challenges, which are related to power and control. The relationship between cyber security and surveillance in the UAE is complex.

The UAE participates in the world economy and indeed in the network of globalization. Its modest size compared with that of the Group of Eight (G8) powers makes it vulnerable to the vagaries of the world economy – the price of a barrel of oil is an essential indicator for assessing the stability of the oil-producing states. From an economic point of view, food supply remains the Achilles’ heel of the emirates. According to Berhanu Degefa, the growth of the population is a major constraint to development, but food insecurity results from numerous factors (Chapter 8). The UAE imports 85% of its consumption needs and local production does not satisfy the increasing demand. The 2007 food crisis forced the Emirati rulers to find creative alternatives, by developing partnerships with emerging countries, for instance. For his part, Martin Hvidt in Chapter 9 describes the economic and financial interconnections between Abu Dhabi, Dubai and the rest of the world. Neither the federal nor the local governments have room for indecision but instead resolutely adopt a proactive stance primarily by maximizing avenues of diversification.

Part III: An enclave of security in the Middle East

In International Relations, peace is not a given. Warfare, in fact, looks like the normal course of international affairs. However, this perception, exaggerated and distorted in the West, does contain some truth. The structure of stability and Emirati efforts deployed in a regional context determine the risk of conflict.

The structure of stability relies on two traditional pillars, the military and diplomacy. For a newcomer, born in 1971, the federal state had no tradition to refer to. The army and foreign policy were therefore built up from scratch. In their efforts to address specific issues, the administrations and the policies have been a blend of local heritage and imported influences. In Chapter 10, Emma Soubrier wonders how in this context the young Emirati army became one of the most powerful armies in the Middle East. The federation built a credible military power able to fulfil the federation’s external engagement (projection abroad and peacekeeping operations) but also to negotiate bilateral or multilateral cooperation agreements on an equal footing with other major powers...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of illustrations
• List of contributors
• Abbreviations
• 1. Introduction: The UAE at the crossroads of traditional and non-traditional security
• PART I: Thinking about security issues
• PART II: Transnational threats
• PART III: An enclave of security in the Middle East
• PART IV: Keeping the emirates safe
• Index