The French Defense Model Won't Work for Europe

In today’s increasingly multipolar world, power doesn’t just belong to superpowers anymore. It belongs to the states that understand leverage—how to move money, influence, and security through places where sovereignty is weak and attention is scarce. As the United States, China, Europe, and Russia focus on managing their own global rivalries, a different tier of actors has stepped into the gaps.

Regional powers.

Brazil in Latin America. Turkey and Qatar in the Middle East. South Korea in East Asia. Each has found ways to punch above its weight. But no country has exploited this moment as effectively—or as quietly—as the United Arab Emirates.

The UAE is not trying to dominate the world. It is doing something far more precise. It is building a system—one that protects its trade routes, secures its resource flows, and insulates it from instability—by aligning with non-state actors across some of the most volatile regions on Earth. These relationships don’t look like formal alliances. They don’t come with flags or treaties. But together, they form something resembling a shadow empire.

And it’s working.

A Spiderweb, Not a Sphere

At first glance, the UAE’s approach looks familiar. In fact, it closely resembles the strategy long used by Iran: cultivate non-state partners, supply them with money and weapons, and let them advance shared interests on the ground.

But there’s a crucial difference.

Iran’s proxy network—the so-called Axis of Resistance—is ideological, confrontational, and loud. It exists to challenge Israel and the West directly. The UAE’s network is none of those things. It is pragmatic, transactional, and deliberately boring. Religion matters, but ideology does not drive the strategy. Stability does.

The UAE’s proxy relationships cluster around four geographic nodes: Sudan, Yemen, Libya, and Somalia. In each case, Abu Dhabi backs forces that either oppose or sideline internationally recognized governments—sometimes openly, sometimes quietly—while maintaining just enough diplomatic distance to preserve plausible deniability.

This is not chaos. It’s design.

Sudan: Gold, Guns, and Silence

Nowhere is the UAE’s strategy more visible—or more disturbing—than in Sudan.

In Sudan’s civil war, the UAE backs the Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary group descended directly from the Janjaweed militias responsible for atrocities in Darfur. Emirati support is extensive: cash, weapons, drones, air defenses, and logistics delivered through Emirati companies and aircraft, often routed through neighboring states.

Despite overwhelming evidence of mass atrocities—including genocidal violence in Darfur in late 2025—the UAE has not wavered. Instead, it has doubled down, even facilitating third-party support from countries eager to keep their hands clean.

Publicly, Abu Dhabi denies everything. Privately, it has created a model of modern proxy warfare: outsource brutality, obscure the supply chain, and maintain pristine diplomatic relations with Washington and Europe.

The payoff is gold.

The RSF controls much of Sudan’s gold production. That gold flows into the Emirates, where it is refined, relabeled, and sold as Emirati gold—despite the UAE having no domestic reserves. It is a financial alchemy that turns conflict into legitimacy.

Sudan also offers something else: potential access to the Red Sea. If the RSF consolidates control, Abu Dhabi gains another strategic foothold along one of the world’s most important maritime corridors.

Yemen: The Cleaner Proxy

If Sudan is the UAE’s ugliest partnership, Yemen is its most refined.

The UAE backs the Southern Transitional Council, a separatist movement that seized control of nearly all of former South Yemen in a rapid, largely bloodless campaign in late 2025. Unlike the RSF, the STC has been careful. Its messaging is disciplined. Its violence is selective. Its pitch to the West is clear: recognize us, and we’ll fight the Houthis for you.

This wasn’t always the plan. The UAE entered Yemen as part of a Saudi-led coalition backing the internationally recognized government. But as Abu Dhabi and Riyadh drifted into rivalry, Emirati support quietly shifted.

Today, the STC controls ports, oil fields, and coastline. It receives Emirati weapons, funding, training, and logistical support. And it is openly positioning itself as the most reliable counterweight to the Houthis in southern Yemen.

Saudi Arabia is not pleased. Tens of thousands of Saudi-backed forces now sit near the border. But a direct confrontation risks international scrutiny—and possibly legitimizing the STC by forcing outside powers to choose sides.

For the UAE, that’s not a risk. It’s leverage.

Libya: The Anchor State

Libya is where the UAE’s proxy strategy matured.

Abu Dhabi has long backed Khalifa Haftar, the warlord who leads the Libyan National Army and underpins the rival Government of National Stability. During Libya’s civil war, Emirati airstrikes, weapons, and logistics kept Haftar’s forces alive.

Today, that relationship serves multiple purposes.

Haftar controls territory rich in oil. He provides a counterweight to Islamist factions in Tripoli. And critically, Libya has become the UAE’s logistical rear base for operations in Sudan. From renovated airstrips in the southeast, Emirati-linked supply chains funnel weapons, fuel, and personnel toward the Sudanese border.

Libya gives the UAE something priceless: stable territory in an unstable region, and indirect influence over one of Africa’s most important energy producers.

Somalia: Playing Every Side

Somalia reveals just how flexible the UAE is willing to be.

Here, Abu Dhabi backs multiple factions simultaneously: the unrecognized state of Somaliland, the autonomous region of Puntland, and—quietly—the federal government in Mogadishu. This isn’t ideological confusion. It’s risk management.

In Somaliland, the UAE has built a military base and transformed Berbera into a major port through DP World. In Puntland, Emirati funding has strengthened regional security forces, secured Bosaso Airport as a logistics hub, and supported operations against extremist groups, including al-Shabaab.

At the same time, the UAE continues to train and fund Somali federal forces. Why? Because alienating Mogadishu entirely would invite international pressure—and potentially jeopardize Emirati positions elsewhere.

Somalia is unstable. The UAE’s goal is not control. It’s containment.

What This Is Really About

Strip away the rhetoric about counterterrorism and political Islam, and a simpler picture emerges.

This is about trade.

The UAE’s proxy map mirrors its commercial arteries: gold flowing out of Africa, oil flowing toward Europe and Asia, and shipping lanes threading through the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. Every proxy partner sits near a chokepoint, a port, or a transit corridor.

Sudan protects gold flows.

Yemen secures coastlines.

Somalia monitors piracy and missile threats.

Libya anchors operations and energy access.

Together, they form a security belt around the UAE’s global transshipment network.

For a country whose population is nearly 90% foreign and whose economy depends on uninterrupted trade, this is existential. Disruption isn’t just costly—it’s destabilizing.

The Endgame

What makes the UAE’s strategy so effective is not aggression, but balance.

Abu Dhabi maintains ties with rivals simultaneously. It funds governments while backing their enemies. It cooperates with the U.S. and Israel on maritime security while facilitating Russian oil transfers. It supports separatists without formally recognizing them.

Security, not victory, is the goal.

And so far, the world has rewarded this approach. The UAE faces little sanction risk. Its diplomatic relationships remain strong. Its shipping lanes are protected. Its wealth continues to grow.

In building a multinational proxy network without ever calling it one, the UAE has done something remarkable: it has guaranteed its own security in a chaotic world—without ever having to conquer a single country.

That may be the most modern form of power there is.

SOURCES

https://www.middleeasteye.net/big-story/abu-dhabi-built-axis-secessionists-across-region-how

https://www.csis.org/analysis/united-arab-emirates-footnote-sophisticated-global-partner

https://epicenter.wcfia.harvard.edu/blog/allies-odds-tracking-rivalry-between-saudi-arabia-and-united-arab-emirates