Tracing UAE’s shadow alliances shaping regional power dynamics
In a world that is steadily shifting away from clear superpower dominance, opportunity now favors those regional players bold enough to act. As the United States, China, Russia, and Europe focus on managing global competition, space has opened for ambitious middle powers to shape events beyond their borders. Among them, the United Arab Emirates stands out—not through sheer size or population, but through money, calculation, and a willingness to operate in the shadows.
The UAE has quietly built one of the most expansive networks of non-state allies in the Middle East and Africa. These relationships are not accidental or ideological crusades. They are transactional, pragmatic, and tightly connected to Abu Dhabi’s core interests: security, trade, and survival in an unpredictable world.
At first glance, the UAE’s strategy resembles Iran’s long-standing use of proxy forces. Like Tehran, Abu Dhabi channels money, weapons, training, and diplomatic cover to non-state actors willing to advance shared objectives. The key difference lies in intent. Iran’s proxies are bound together by revolutionary ideology and open confrontation with Israel and the West. The UAE’s partners, by contrast, are united by usefulness. They control territory, ports, airstrips, or resources that matter to Emirati trade routes—and ideology comes second.
This web of influence stretches across four main arenas: Sudan, Yemen, Libya, and Somalia. In each case, the UAE has chosen to work outside internationally recognized governments, betting instead on armed factions that offer leverage on the ground.
Sudan is the most troubling example. By backing the Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary group with roots in the Janjaweed militias of Darfur, the UAE has inserted itself directly into one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters. Financial support, weapons, drones, and logistics have allowed the RSF to wage a devastating campaign, even amid credible allegations of genocide. Officially, Abu Dhabi denies involvement, relying on private companies and intermediaries to maintain plausible deniability. Unofficially, the payoff is clear: gold. Much of Sudan’s gold—often mined or trafficked from conflict zones—flows into the UAE, where it is refined, rebranded, and sold on global markets.
Yemen offers a different model. There, the UAE has backed the Southern Transitional Council, a separatist force that now controls most of former South Yemen. Unlike the RSF, the STC has carefully curated its image, presenting itself as a stabilizing force and a counterweight to the Iran-aligned Houthis. Emirati weapons, training, and funding have been decisive, but so has diplomacy. The STC’s largely bloodless territorial takeover suggests careful coordination, not chaos. For Abu Dhabi, the prize is strategic coastline control along the Gulf of Aden—one of the world’s most critical shipping corridors.
Libya functions as the UAE’s logistical backbone. Its alliance with Khalifa Haftar and the eastern-based Government of National Stability dates back to the Libyan civil war, when Emirati airpower and supplies helped prevent Haftar’s defeat. Today, Libya serves as a launchpad for operations into Sudan. Remote airstrips near the border allow weapons, fuel, and fighters to move with minimal scrutiny. Control over Libya’s vast oil reserves is an added bonus, reinforcing the UAE’s influence in global energy markets.
Somalia, meanwhile, showcases the Emirates’ flexibility. Rather than backing a single faction, Abu Dhabi works with several at once: Somaliland, Puntland, Jubaland, and even the federal government in Mogadishu. Ports, airports, military bases, and security forces all receive Emirati support, tailored to local conditions. The goal is not dominance, but access—particularly along the Gulf of Aden, where piracy, terrorism, and Houthi threats intersect. By spreading its bets, the UAE reduces the risk of any single faction turning against its interests.
Taken together, these relationships form more than a patchwork of influence. They map directly onto the UAE’s trade arteries. Gold flows from Africa to Dubai. Oil flows from the Gulf toward Europe and Asia through the Red Sea, Suez Canal, and Strait of Malacca. Emirati-backed forces sit astride chokepoints that could otherwise be disrupted by war, piracy, or hostile states.
This strategy explains why ideology consistently takes a back seat to stability. Abu Dhabi can fund one faction while maintaining economic ties with its rival. It can support separatists while still dealing with central governments. The aim is not victory in any one conflict, but insulation from chaos.
The approach is undeniably risky. Balancing competing militias, governments, and foreign powers leaves little margin for error. Yet so far, it has worked. The UAE has avoided serious sanctions, preserved good relations with global powers, and entrenched itself as an indispensable partner across key regions.
In building its quiet proxy network, the UAE has done something remarkable: it has transformed vulnerability into leverage. By securing the routes that sustain its economy, Abu Dhabi has ensured that its influence—like its trade—keeps moving, even as the world around it fractures.