阿联酋外交和国家安全政策中的风险感知和偏好.docxVIP

Contents Summary 2 Introduction 3 The UAE’s Foreign and National Security Policy in Historical Context 6 After Zayed: The Rise of MbZ and the Bani Fatima 10 Threat Perception: Iran and the Ikhwan 13 Assessing UAE Foreign and National Security Policy Since 2011 18 Stretched to Capacity? A Small Circle of Decision-makers 21 Emerging Alliances 27 Case Study: The UAE and Yemen 31 Conclusion 36 About the Author 38 Acknowledgments 39 Summary The UAE has emerged as an influential player in regional power politics over the past decade, in a shift from a previously conservative foreign policy focused on self-preservation. Often, UAE foreign and national security policy is analysed in the West on the basis of certain initiatives – its support for Khalifa Haftar in Libya, for example, or for secessionists and other groups in Yemen; or its role in the 2017 Qatar crisis – that seemingly point to an overall strategy or set of intentions. Rarely are its policies studied through a more comprehensive survey of its activities in multiple countries in the ‘neighbourhood’ where it is most visibly engaged. This paper, researched and written as part of a Chatham House project to address this gap in analysis of the UAE’s foreign and national security policy, sheds light on Abu Dhabi’s ambitions to play a key role in shaping political and governance structures across the region in line with its own model, and in securing trade routes in its wider neighbourhood as an economic hub linking East Africa and South Asia. The ‘UAE model’ integrates economic openness, strong governance and service delivery, and a relatively secular and liberal (for the region) social environment, combined with a closed political system that polices speech and is built around an entrenched security state. Just as important is a rejection of any political or religious ideology that might challenge the supremacy of the state and its leaders. UAE officials perceive that transnational, pol