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This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from the King’s Research Portal at https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/ Changing security dynamics in the Persian Gulf the case of the United Arab Emirates Esfandiary, Dina Awarding institution: King's College London The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. END USER LICENCE AGREEMENT Unless another licence is stated on the immediately following page this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the work Under the following conditions: Attribution: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Non Commercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes. No Derivative Works - You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. Any of these conditions can be waived if you receive permission from the author. Your fair dealings and other rights are in no way affected by the above. Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 07. Oct. 2021 Changing security dynamics in the Persian Gulf: The case of the United Arab Emirates PhD in War Studies Dina Esfandiary 1 Table of Contents Abstract ................................................................................................................................................... 4 Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 6 1. Context ........................................................................................................................................ 7 2. Literature review: What gap is being filled? ............................................................................. 12 3. Questions and justification ....................................................................................................... 17 4. Methodology and research design ........................................................................................... 29 Chapter 1: The Persian Gulf before 2011 ............................................................................................. 36 1. The Persian Gulf region before 2003 ........................................................................................ 37 2. The United Arab Emirates ......................................................................................................... 51 Chapter 2: Assertiveness and its indicators .......................................................................................... 59 1. Defining assertiveness .............................................................................................................. 60 2. Indicators of assertiveness ........................................................................................................ 65 Chapter 3: The UAE’s growing assertiveness ........................................................................................ 79 1. Growing capabilities .................................................................................................................. 79 2. Intent ....................................................................................................................................... 103 3. The perception of success ....................................................................................................... 114 Chapter 4: Why a growing assertiveness? .......................................................................................... 128 1. Foreign policy studies ............................................................................................................. 130 2. Analysing foreign policy in non-democratic regimes .............................................................. 139 3. The domestic scene in the UAE ............................................................................................... 150 4. The disorder catalysts ............................................................................................................. 162 Chapter 5: Catalyst one - The 2011 Arab Spring ................................................................................. 167 1. Drivers of the Arab Spring ....................................................................................................... 170 2. An Arab Spring in the Persian Gulf? ........................................................................................ 177 3. The impact of the Arab Spring on regional foreign policy ...................................................... 184 4. Changes in the Persian Gulf following the Arab Spring .......................................................... 197 Chapter 6: Catalyst two - The US Pivot to Asia ................................................................................... 204 1. The US in the Persian Gulf Region .......................................................................................... 206 2. The Pivot ................................................................................................................................. 214 3. The impact of the Pivot on the Gulf Arabs .............................................................................. 227 Chapter 7: Catalyst three - The 2015 Iran nuclear deal ...................................................................... 238 1. The 2015 nuclear deal ............................................................................................................. 241 2. The Gulf Arabs and the Iran nuclear crisis .............................................................................. 246 3. The impact of the 2015 nuclear deal on the UAE and its allies .............................................. 258 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................... 275 2 1. Looking forward ...................................................................................................................... 279 2. The broader impact of the change ......................................................................................... 287 Bibliography ........................................................................................................................................ 298 3 Abstract For over a decade now, thinking on regional relations in the Persian Gulf has focused largely on the competition for regional hegemony between Iran and Saudi Arabia, and the different layers of this rivalry, but today, the region is changing. While Saudi Arabia and Iran remain major regional powers, a growing assertiveness appears to be taking shape within the UAE, and to a lesser extent within some of its smaller Gulf Arab neighbours, since 2011. This change is what this dissertation aims to study. The growing assertiveness among the smaller Gulf Arab states has the potential to profoundly affect regional security and the way the Persian Gulf states interact amongst themselves and with the regional hegemons in the long term. While interstate relations in the Persian Gulf have been the subject of a significant body of literature, there remain some gaps. This dissertation, written in two parts and using the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as a case study, will aim to answer the following questions: What is the evidence supporting the assertion that the UAE has become more assertive in its foreign policy? What are the key drivers of this change? On a larger scale, the dissertation also considers the extent to which changes in the UAE can be considered representative of a broader trend of increased assertiveness among smaller Gulf states. The choice of the UAE as a case study relates to the fact that this smaller Gulf Arab state represents the most visible and resilient manifestation of this change to regional dynamics. In the first part, the dissertation will set out a number of ‘indicators’ of assertiveness - including growing capabilities; the intention to use those capabilities in the pursuit of 4 foreign policy objectives; and the perceived success of their use - and apply these to the UAE with a view to evidencing the UAE’s growing assertiveness. In the second part, the dissertation will use a modified foreign policy analysis lens to structure an exploration of why the UAE has taken this particular path, with a particular focus on external drivers. Three key issues dominate the discussion in this context - the 2011 Arab Spring,1 President Obama’s announced Pivot to Asia,2 and the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran.3 These external factors impacted significantly on the UAE’s foreign policymaking, by creating opportunities and entrenching old fears – both with regards to domestic security and the rise of regional threats, and, ultimately, driving the assertiveness that is increasingly visible in the country’s foreign policy decisions. It remains to be seen whether the smaller Gulf Arab states will also follow in the UAE’s footsteps and display greater assertiveness in a lasting manner, or periodically display it in specific arenas. Nonetheless,