The Arab Gulf’s New Nationalism

These initiatives have already had tangible effects. Saudi Arabia and the UAE are involved in almost every conflict zone and geopolitical fault line spanning the greater Middle East and are now at the forefront of the region’s recent moves toward de-escalation. The governments in the Saudi and UAE capitals of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, respectively, recognize the emerging multipolar global order as a reality and are positioning themselves accordingly to best advance their own interests in the short and long terms, often to the objections of the United States.

As power in the region continues to gravitate toward the Gulf, the evolution of this new push toward nationalism in Saudi Arabia and the UAE and their efforts to project themselves abroad will have profound ramifications for the Middle East—and U.S. foreign policy.

Nationalism is the new authoritarian foundation upon which Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed seek to establish their control. Both leaders have already amassed more power domestically than any previous rulers in their countries’ histories, and they wish to preserve their absolute authority in the long term.

Central to this goal is the restructuring of national identities, with Mohammed bin Salman and bin Zayed engaged in a form of identity engineering directed at both domestic and foreign audiences and designed to entrench their own power.

In Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman is attempting to reorient national identity away from a sole emphasis on religion and toward a new idea of what it means to be “Saudi.” Since its founding, the modern Saudi state has been a joint political-religious project. Traditionally, this relied on a religious nationalism rooted in narratives depicting Saudi Arabia as a purified Islamic utopia. It is this vision from which the ruling Al Saud family has historically sought to derive its legitimacy.

Mohammed bin Salman instead wants to make Saudi nationalism the primary legitimizing and unifying force in the country. Though religion remains a critical tool of statecraft for Riyadh, Islam is being reoriented to support this new nationalist endeavor.

This is most apparent in the various reforms taking place at the crown prince’s direction, including efforts to distance official Saudi Arabian history from Wahhabism; allowing women to drive, live alone, and travel without a male guardian; limiting the religious police’s powers; permitting public entertainment venues such as cinemas and concerts; purges of government officials and royals under the pretext of combatting corruption; and arrests of religious clerics and scholars the regime has labeled as extremists. Textbooks and state education have been revamped to embrace this new nationalist narrative while distancing the country from pan-Arab or pan-Islamic causes.

Riyadh has also leaned heavily into militarization as a way to strengthen this nationalist project, using military symbolism to rally society and foster a shared sense of loyalty and devotion while also substantially increasing defense spending.

In the UAE, bin Zayed is also attempting to restructure national identity toward a more cohesive sense of being “Emirati.” The seven emirates that now compose the UAE—Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Ajman, Fujairah, Umm al-Quwain, and Ras al-Khaimah—gained independence from Britain in 1971; six formed a federation immediately, with Ras al-Khaimah joining in 1972. Upon its formation, the UAE was dominated primarily by a tribal hierarchy with little sense of national identity.

From its very inception, nation-building within the UAE has focused heavily on the consolidation and legitimization of state authority and the construction of a sense of shared identity. Instead of beginning from scratch like Mohammed bin Salman, bin Zayed has simply dramatically accelerated these existing efforts to foster a common Emirati identity while consolidating power over the other emirates in Abu Dhabi and centralizing state authority in his own hands.

Initiatives designed to foster a shared sense of identity include the 2018 “Year of Zayed,” the introduction of various national museums and libraries, and an expanded emphasis on annual National Day celebrations. Education in the emirates has also continued to be heavily reformed, with bin Zayed directing curricula to focus heavily on Emirati national identity and the creation of what scholars Zeynep Ozgen and Sharif Ibrahim El Shishtawy Hassan describe as “entrepreneurial, self-reliant, and achievement-oriented Emirati citizens.”

Similar to Mohammed bin Salman, bin Zayed has also used militarization to buttress this nationalist program, introducing holidays such as Commemoration Day (or “Martyrs’ Day”) to honor the Emirati military and fallen soldiers, while also overseeing a marked increase in defense spending and the rise of the UAE as a major regional powerbroker.

Critical to this increased nationalism is the importance of the economy. Mohammed bin Salman and bin Zayed are overseeing the attempted economic restructuring of their countries toward a sustainable, post-oil future. Both the Saudi and UAE welfare states are under stress, resulting in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi cutting subsidies while encouraging the development of “entrepreneurial citizens” who, in loyalty to their nation, contribute to the economy, thereby altering the social contract that has underpinned state-society relations in these countries for decades.

Riyadh’s and Abu Dhabi’s new Vision 2030 initiatives are the economic foundations of this new push, designed to establish Saudi Arabia and the UAE as major economic hubs of the Middle East and lucrative markets for international capital. To accomplish this, the two countries have projected international images of modernity, progress, and stability in the hopes of garnering foreign support and investment. This has included efforts to promote tourism, ventures into global sports, the hosting of international investment summits, and various international religious initiatives that depict these actors as advocates of so-called moderate Islam.

Despite the economic initiatives, oil revenue remains of paramount importance for Riyadh and Abu Dhabi. Mohammed bin Salman and bin Zayed need money for these nationalist schemes, and their economies—particularly Saudi Arabia’s—remain heavily reliant on oil.

In Saudi Arabia, progress on Vision 2030 is lagging badly, particularly in two critical areas: private sector growth and non-oil government revenue. Though Saudi Arabia’s economy grew 8.7 percent in 2022 thanks to high oil prices—yielding the kingdom’s first budget surplus in almost 10 years—the International Monetary Fund projects this growth to slow to 1.9 percent in 2023, the steepest growth downgrade among major world economies.

In the UAE, youth are facing high unemployment as the state continues to increase taxes. As economic progress lags, high oil revenues will remain critical for the foreseeable future, evidenced by continued production cuts by Riyadh and frustration in Abu Dhabi over disagreements with Saudi regarding OPEC+ production caps.

In line with these domestic turns toward nationalism have been efforts by Mohammed bin Salman and bin Zayed to assert Saudi Arabia and the UAE to the forefront of the Middle East’s geostrategic landscape.

Riyadh and Abu Dhabi led the regional counterrevolution in the roughly 13 years following the Arab Spring uprisings, supporting allied authoritarian actors to stymie movements challenging the prevailing status quo in the Middle East. Mohammed bin Salman and bin Zayed launched a military campaign in Yemen in 2015 that subsequently resulted in the world’s worst humanitarian crisis and more than 377,000 deaths. And together they spearheaded an air, land, and naval blockade of Qatar in 2017 that lasted until 2021 and reportedly included plans for a military operation before dissuasion by the United States.

Riyadh and Abu Dhabi have also considerably expanded their strategic relationships with Jerusalem, with the UAE normalizing relations with Israel in 2020 as part of the Abraham Accords. Saudi Arabia and the UAE have also increasingly sought to expand their strategic presence outside of their traditional areas of operation, namely in places such as the eastern Mediterranean and the Horn of Africa.

This desire to assert themselves has now gone global: Both Mohammed bin Salman and bin Zayed have overseen the considerable growth of Saudi Arabia’s and the UAE’s political, economic, and security relationships with Russia and China.

Riyadh and Abu Dhabi have abstained from taking sides in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine; continue to coordinate with Moscow on oil production, much to the objection of Washington; and have thus far refused to enforce sanctions against Russia. Security ties among Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, and Moscow have also deepened, centered primarily on arms sales. Saudi Arabia and the UAE have even repeatedly expressed their support for China’s draconian policies toward its domestic Muslim community.

China has considerably increased its economic relationships with Saudi Arabia and the UAE, with Beijing now the largest trade partner and primary oil consumer for both Riyadh and Abu Dhabi. Investments among Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and China have also increased dramatically and are positioned to grow in the future. Security ties have likewise strengthened, in areas such as arms sales and reports of resumed construction of a Chinese military facility in the UAE.

Recently, Mohammed bin Salman and bin Zayed seem to have come to view diplomacy as the best way to advance their interests. Saudi Arabia and the UAE ended the blockade against Qatar and are mending their contentious relationships with Turkey; Mohammed bin Salman and bin Zayed have sought to reintegrate Syrian President Bashar al-Assad back into the regional fold; Saudi Arabia is engaging in (largely unsuccessful) negotiations in Yemen; and both countries are easing tensions with Iran, with Riyadh and Tehran reestablishing diplomatic tensions that were severed in 2016.

This turn toward diplomacy is primarily the result of changing domestic, regional, and international contexts that currently favor de-escalation.

At home, Mohammed bin Salman and bin Zayed are desperately trying to execute their grand plans, which requires a relatively secure domestic landscape. The 2019 missile attacks, believed to be by Iran, on the Aramco facilities in Abqaiq and Khurais in eastern Saudi Arabia, as well as the 2022 missile attacks by Yemen’s Houthis against the UAE—coupled with what Riyadh and Abu Dhabi perceived as a lackluster U.S. response—highlighted Saudi and Emirati vulnerability. Such attacks are particularly bad for international optics as Riyadh and Abu Dhabi seek to garner investments from abroad.

Across the Middle East, counterrevolutionary forces have largely succeeded, evidenced by an authoritarian resurgence, and the intense state-societies and geopolitical competition that proceeded from the uprisings and the strategic openings they created have receded, at least for now.

In Yemen, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have been unsuccessful in their attempts to defeat the Houthis while expending considerable resources in the process. At its height, the war cost Riyadh an estimated $5 billion to $6 billion a month, while providing weapons to the Houthis cost Tehran a fraction of that. Having secured the regional authoritarian status quo and reaching an impasse in Yemen, overt Saudi and Emirati aggression has, for now, become redundant.

Added to this is the expanding presence of Russia and China in the region, while Saudi Arabia and the UAE’s security guarantor, the United States, scrambles to formulate a coherent Middle East policy capable of adapting to a new multipolar world.

As Mohammed bin Salman and bin Zayed attempt to navigate the return of multipolarity to the region and globally, they are first and foremost abstaining from adopting a zero-sum approach to great-power politics, instead engaging solely from a perspective of how to best advance their own interests.

These nationalist pivots are the product of ruling elites in Saudi Arabia and the UAE seeking to respond to changing domestic, regional, and international contexts. Still, these initiatives remain susceptible to challenges from below as well as from old and new regional fault lines and a changing world order.

Domestically, Mohammed bin Salman and bin Zayed view the success of their nationalist projects and the reformulation of their authoritarian foundations as existential. This desire to construct a new and sustainable bedrock of personalistic dictatorial rule has resulted in the increased securitization of policies and society inside Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Mohammed bin Salman and bin Zayed still depend heavily on fierce repression to silence critics of their policies. Repression is likely to increase as the stakes surrounding the success of these nationalist strategies continue to grow.

Also critical to the future of these enterprises is whether the governments can follow through on their promises of economic success and whether Mohammed bin Salman and bin Zayed are able to project themselves domestically as the best guarantors of national interests. Intense nationalism can easily generate forces beyond the control of the state—even highly authoritarian ones—and if Mohammed bin Salman and bin Zayed fail to deliver, they risk being targeted by the very nationalist forces they are actively encouraging.

And despite the current regional trend toward de-escalation, the underlying distrust and geopolitical tensions among Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and their regional competitors have not disappeared and could easily be reignited. These conflicts are best thought of as “frozen,” with domestic, regional, and international contexts currently favoring de-escalation. But such contexts can shift rapidly, as can the strategic calculus of the ambitious rulers in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi.

These hard turns toward nationalism also bring risk of escalation. Clashing interests can easily reignite old rivalries or create new fault lines with the potential for conflict. Competing nationalisms between Saudi Arabia and the UAE have increasingly become more public as both Mohammed bin Salman and bin Zayed seek to establish themselves as the dominant actors in the Gulf and Middle East more generally. Competition over foreign investment, oil production, and strategic concerns in places such as Yemen and Sudan has deepened the rift between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi.

How the United States chooses to react to such developments will be critical. Diverging objectives among the United States, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE should call into question the “blank check” policies Washington has pursued vis-à-vis Riyadh and Abu Dhabi. Why should the United States continue to subsidize the security of Mohammed bin Salman and bin Zayed as they seek to restructure authoritarian rule domestically while projecting their own influence abroad, goals of which neither is inherently beneficial for the United States?

Yet the Biden administration appears intent on doubling down on Saudi Arabia and the UAE, failing to recognize changing regional and international contexts. Biden is reportedly considering signing a mutual security pact with Saudi Arabia in return for Riyadh normalizing relations with Jerusalem. This follows similar reports that Washington provided a draft formal defense agreement to the UAE in July 2022. Instead of adapting to new realities, the Biden administration risks entrapping the United States as the security guarantor for ambitious autocrats who do not share its interests or values.