The Saudi-Emirati axis has used a variety of foreign policy instruments including military intervention and strategic outreach, economic investment and financial support, religious networks and media outlets to achieve its objectives. These objectives are to contain the so-called ‘triple threat’ posed by Iran, the Muslim Brotherhood and international terrorist groups (like Al-Qaeda and ISIS) to the continuity of rule in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, as well as to prevent them from exploiting regional volatility. While financial support and the employment of religious networks are longstanding Saudi and Emirati foreign policy tools, military intervention and strategic outreach, as well as (to a lesser extent) the creation of new media outlets, are novel instruments and illustrate the more assertive stance of both countries as a result of the regional turmoil after 2011 and the perceived US disengagement from the region following the Obama administration’s ‘pivot to Asia’.[164]

Despite modernisation of their armed forces, the successful projection of military power by Saudi Arabia and the UAE to achieve strategic objectives remains a challenge. While the military intervention of the GCC Peninsula Shield force played an important role in preserving the ruling al-Khalifa family in Bahrain, the war in Yemen initiated in 2015 has been a PR disaster and ineffective in terms of warfighting. Saudi Arabia and the UAE both face limitations in terms of the number of infantry forces they can deploy and have experienced difficulties in compensating for this with the use of local allies and foreign troops. As a result, more than six years after the military intervention, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have failed to push the Houthis back from most of the territory they have acquired since 2014 and have not managed to reinstate the Hadi government. Saudi Arabia still faces regular rocket attacks from Houthi-held territory, whose ties with Iran have only strengthened. Meanwhile, about 250,000 Yemenis have lost their lives, 4 million have been displaced, and the majority now depend on humanitarian aid. In brief, the Saudis have helped create a large political and humanitarian crisis right on their doorstep, the effects of which will be felt for decades to come. Currently, King Salman and his son Mohammed bin Salman are in search of an exit strategy.[165] In March 2021, Saudi Arabia presented a peace initiative that included a nationwide ceasefire. This proposal was rejected by the Houthis[166] and peace negotiations between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis mediated by Oman have so far failed to yield significant results. The Iranian-Saudi talks that started in April 2021[167] could be conducive to a peace deal between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis, although the leverage Iran possesses over the Houthis remains unclear and might well be more limited than assumed.

More generally, both the UAE and Saudi Arabia appear to be returning to a policy of working through non-state actors to protect their strategic interests related to maritime security, counter terrorism, the Muslim Brotherhood and Iran.[168] However, this strategy has its drawbacks. The setbacks Saudi Arabia faced with building a rebel army in Syria, as well as the failed attempts of General Haftar to take control over Tripoli despite Emirati support, reveal the challenges in establishing capable local armed forces that could help to pursue Saudi and Emirati interests. Both countries lack experience in this realm and do not seem to be on a steep learning curve.

Despite their obvious shortcomings in the projection of military power, Saudi-Emirati financial resources nevertheless remain unparalleled. These means have been used effectively by both countries to support friendly regimes, such as in Bahrain, Oman, Jordan and Morocco, that were challenged by the Arab uprisings but which managed to weather the storm and avoid crisis despite large protests. Financial support is also being used as leverage over regimes in the region’s weaker states, such as Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Tunisia and Yemen, which are partly dependent on Gulf investments, loans and grants.[169] However, this policy is less useful in countries in which regional competitors have established strong relationships with hybrid coercive organisations – such as Iran in Lebanon (with Hezbollah) and in Iraq (e.g. with Asaib ahl al-Haq and Kataib Hezbollah), which can defend Iranian interests.

It should nevertheless be noted that Saudi and Emirati resources are decreasing in the relative sense. The drop in oil prices since mid-2014 has been compounded by the Covid-19 pandemic and this has forced both countries to cut spending,[170] complicating the provision of financial support to their allies. While the current surge in oil prices provides temporary relief, the long-term viability of economies dependent on oil and gas exports is questionable, which could have consequences for the patron-client relationships in the region that have proved vital to the preservation of the regional order.

Alongside military and financial power, the Saudi-Emirati axis also employs soft power, providing it with ‘the ability to shape the preferences of others’,[171] in the form of influence over religious networks and control over regional media outlets. The Salafist networks that have been nurtured since the 1960s promote the principle of wali al-amr – i.e. religious legitimacy for authoritarian regimes across the region while discrediting movements that seek political reform. However, Salafist religious networks are difficult to control and could lead to unintended consequences. They have, for example, contributed to the emergence of violent extremist organisations that pose a threat to the legitimacy of the regimes in Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Media outlets are more easily controlled by the rulers of Saudi Arabia and the UAE and have become important instruments to gain support for their policies among foreign audiences. The founding of Al-Jazeera in 1996 and the 2011 Arab uprisings spurred the launch of new pan-Arab media outlets such as Al-Arabiya and Sky News Arabia. These have fostered sectarianism and anti-Iran sentiments in the region, supported the media offensive against Qatar in light of the 2017 blockade and demonstrated sympathy towards friendly autocratic regimes. They are a means through which Al-Jazeera’s influence on Arab public opinion has been reduced. However, while there is strong competition from other media channels, the partisan coverage of these outlets affects their credibility. Social media platforms also make it more complicated for states to control the flow of information and ideas. Nevertheless, Saudi and Emirati narratives have been promoted on social media channels through orchestrated campaigns to affect domestic and regional public opinion.[172] Simultaneously, the security services in both countries have built up significant surveillance capabilities that could be deployed against their adversaries and to intimidate critics.

… or rather in disarray?

Saudi Arabia and the UAE facilitated a post-2011 counter-revolution that sustained the dominant position of the Gulf powers in the region and reversed some of the shifts that had taken place since 2011. Their cooperation solidified in December 2017 when the UAE announced the formation of a political and military alliance with Saudi Arabia.[173] However, the Saudi-Emirati axis that emerged after the 2011 Arab uprisings also features rifts that are the result of different threat perceptions and increasing economic competition as both countries aim to diversify their economies. Divergences in threat perceptions have come to the fore in Yemen, where Saudi Arabia has been more pragmatic that the UAE in terms of cooperating with Brotherhood-affiliated organisations such as Al Islah in order to counter the influence of the Houthis.

Greater Saudi pragmatism has also been visible in the signing of the al-Ula agreement on 5 January 2021, which put an end to the blockade against Qatar by Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt. As the al-Ula agreement does not explicitly demand that Qatar breaks its ties with the Muslim Brotherhood and downgrades its relationship with Turkey, the UAE was reserved about the deal.[174] Until now, the UAE (together with Bahrain) has failed to appoint an ambassador to Qatar. This stands in contrast with Saudi Arabia, which was eager to use the al-Ula agreement to strengthen its alliance against Iran.

However, signs of rapprochement between the UAE and Qatar have been visible of late. In late August 2021, the Emirati National Security Adviser Sheikh Tahnoun bin Zayed al-Nahyan visited the Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim. This visit occurred a week after Sheikh Tahnoun bin Zayed met with Turkey’s President Erdogan.[175] These visits are related to a strategic shift in policy. Now that the Biden administration is encouraging regional de-escalation as it seeks to further US military withdrawal from the region, the UAE aims to build bridges with its (former) rivals.[176]

Meanwhile, an Emirati policy shift towards accommodating Qatar has also been encouraged by growing economic competition between Abu Dhabi and Riyadh as both countries need new revenues to recover from the economic implications of the Covid-19 pandemic and lower oil revenues. The UAE openly undermined the leading role of Saudi Arabia in OPEC in December 2020[177] and July 2021 by articulating its displeasure over its oil quota, which it wants increased.[178] Tensions have also grown as both countries seek to diversify their economies away from oil and gas.[179] For example, Saudi Arabia tries to lure multinationals away from Dubai and make Riyadh a regional IT / finance hub,[180] threatening international companies with loss of business in the Kingdom if they do not move their regional headquarters to one of the Saudi cities by 2024.[181] Saudi Arabia also published a decree in July 2021 that excludes products ‘made’ in one of the UAE’s many free zones, as well as products made by companies with Israeli investors, from preferential tariffs.[182] This decree aims to undermine the UAE’s status as a re-exporting hub.

Although Saudi Arabia opened its airspace to Israel in 2020,[183] it has not yet followed the path of Bahrain and the UAE by normalising relations with Israel via the Abraham Accords of August 2020. Instead, it was highly critical of Israel during the military conflict with Hamas that erupted in May 2021,[184] mirroring regional and domestic public opinion that remains sympathetic towards the plight of the Palestinians.[185] While the UAE can easily manoeuvre as a small country without an obvious reginal religious or political leadership role, this is far more challenging for Saudi Arabia because of its desire to play a leading role in the Arab and Muslim worlds, which necessitates it keeping several constituencies in mind when crafting its foreign policy.

Policy considerations for EU Member States

The preceding sections have made clear that Saudi foreign policy in the Middle East is that of an authoritarian and reactionary status quo power. The Saudi authoritarian political order is based on a mix of a hereditary monarchy, a rentier economy, and an ultra-conservative interpretation of Islam that is imposed on its society. Even though domestic reform during the reign of King Salman has relaxed strict conservative behavioural rules and increased socio-cultural freedoms,[186] domestic political repression has increased in parallel and the violation of minority rights has continued. Even though many of these developments fly in the face of values espoused by the EU and its Member States, Saudi Arabia generally obtains friendlier diplomatic treatment than either Iran or Turkey. From a conflict mitigation perspective, this creates friction as it appears to favour one side of the regional competition triangle, which makes mediation of regional crises and conflicts by EU countries more difficult.

Major explanatory factors for this state of affairs include the longstanding US alliance with the House of al-Saud that European countries have not dared to interfere with, as well as massive Saudi purchases of European arms and lucrative investment opportunities. With the US pivot towards Asia and the general decline in Saudi Arabia’s reputation (consider the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi and the humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen), the analysis contained in this report suggests that the time seems opportune to draw a line in the sand. There are good reasons to treat Saudi Arabia on a par with Turkey and Iran given its human rights violations, domestic repression and pursuit of an aggressive foreign policy. As part of such clear-headed diplomatic engagement without favours, better conflict prevention and conflict management across the region will also be served by a serious conversation about the negative effects of the state-funded promotion of proselytisation beyond the kingdom’s boundaries.

Such ‘normalisation’ of Saudi diplomatic treatment might enhance the EU’s credibility and in fact enable it to help improve relations between Iran, Turkey and Saudi Arabia through a form of trilateral dialogue based on equidistance and grounded in mutual economic interests. Pending unresolved political disagreements and security challenges, it might be fruitful to explore practical methods of economic collaboration, such as in the form of improving transport corridors and investing in cross-border assets like electricity grids or more efficient custom procedures. These are all low-key technical problems the EU has experience in and that nevertheless require a measure of political engagement and trouble shooting. The fact that the regional summit in Baghdad in August 2021 was attended by officials from Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, France, Kuwait and Turkey offers a glimmer of hope for future regional cooperation, in which the EU could play a conducive role.[187]

Even in the political-security realm, the EU might try for a negotiated agreement on Lebanon between Iran, Saudi Arabia and France in which sufficient transparency of government finances and administration are combined both with maintaining Hezbollah’s autonomy and limiting its role as veto-player as basis for a long-term economic support strategy. The present situation is, after all, a challenge to all these actors and this can create the willingness to compromise before more is lost in the general degradation of governance and socio-political relations. Should a deal on Lebanon prove possible, it could serve as a basis for further steps, possibly in Yemen where Saudi Arabia is searching for an exit strategy.