For those who’ve been following me for a while, you know I don’t view geopolitics through simplistic labels of good and evil. I analyze through a game-theory lens of interests and power-maximization. Every state, regardless of how noble its facade, engages in morally ambiguous decisions for survival, influence, and strategic dominance. People often struggle to grasp this. Nevertheless, I ask you to keep this perspective in mind as you continue to read this post.
The UAE has recently seen their defense budget soar to $40 billion, surpassing the entire region. It is now providing drones, missile systems and targeted interventions to other nations. In 2015, the UAE openly defied American wishes by plunging headfirst into Yemen’s bloody conflict, spending billions and disregarding international arms laws. By 2021, it pivoted again, abandoning the Saudi-led, US-backed coalition to carve its own strategic enclave in southern Yemen, securing vital ports and significant military advantage in the Horn of Africa. Against clear US warnings, it armed Sudan’s RSF in 2023, a $5 billion gamble, ignoring sanctions and pursuing regional dominance. The UAE is playing a dirty game. It is carefully building out its own transnational MIC. Consciously stepping out from under American shadows. And consciously enabling regional nations to step outside along with it. When Washington attempted to tame Abu Dhabi in 2024, labelling it a “major defense partner,” the UAE coldly responded by welcoming Putin, leaving America fuming. While everyone criticizes the UAE’s subservience, they are slowly, subtly, incrementally defying the US.
And all moral and ethical decisions are secondary to the ultimate prize of autonomy from Western imperialism.
A homegrown MIC isn’t the UAE’s only goal. They want to build a transnational FIC that dwarf the US counterpart. Already a $4.9 trillion colossus, it openly negates American financiers. In 2021, Abu Dhabi casually infused $10 billion into Turkey’s faltering economy, rescuing Erdogan from spiraling inflation, completely disregarding IMF’s stringent austerity measures. When the US imposed sanctions, the UAE responded pragmatically, securing $5 billion in trade deals.
Compare this to America’s CIC, which the likes of Marriott and Hilton exploit Turkey’s financial crisis by keeping the Lira weak, reaping tourism profits. In 2023, the UAE withdrew from hosting the 2026 IMF-World Bank meetings, deliberately handing Qatar a diplomatic win as a calculated insult to Western financial overlords. In 2024, despite IMF pleas for fiscal discipline, the UAE simply ignored them, pushing its non-oil GDP up 4%, driven by real estate and technology, rather than Western-styled debt exploitation.
Ignoring American warnings, the UAE brazenly sheltered Russian oligarchs fleeing sanctions post-Ukraine, turning Dubai into a lucrative $5 billion sanctuary. Then there’s the CIC that the UAE is actively building. A $54 billion tourism powerhouse openly challenging Western economic hegemony. A tourism that not only emulates the West, but far exceeds it on all accounts. In 2022, the UAE pragmatically rebuilt ties with Erdogan through $5 billion in additional investments, revitalizing Turkish tourism while America preached isolation. Ignoring US sanctions on Iran, Abu Dhabi pragmatically restarted trade dialogues in 2023, eyeing another $5 billion in consumer trade. By 2024, the UAE drew 17 million tourists.
Even as America lost $5 billion in regional economic leverage, Dubai’s ports flourished, casually sidestepping Western boycotts against Russia. Putin’s 2023 visit was a symbolic gesture of defiance. This list of diplomatic defiance continues, piece by strategic piece. And morality is not where they draw the line. Then there’s Israel. Abu Dhabi has quietly leveraged its economic might to strategically align with Israel’s opposition factions, supporting figures now openly calling for peace negotiations with Palestinians, waiting on the sidelines for the Israeli Cabinet to dismantle. While everyone calls them traitors, they are operating on ruthless pragmatism, unbound by ideological or religious considerations. And it doesn’t stop there. The UAE’s ambitions aren’t confined merely to emulating America’s MIC, FIC, and CIC.
They aim higher.
They want to dethrone the IMF altogether.
The UAE seeks to replace Western austerity throughout the entire Middle East. When the IMF’s 2024 report demanded fiscal discipline, the UAE simply ignored it, growing the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority to $993 billion, half invested in US markets, entirely free from IMF oversight. Consider Abu Dhabi’s generosity, loaning Turkey $10 billion, no strings attached, when you contrast this with the IMF’s conditional $6 billion loan to Egypt in 2022, burdened with austerity and control. Austerity that trickles down to the citizens of Egypt. On their living conditions. In 2023, the UAE stepped pragmatically into Syria’s chaos with a $1 billion diplomatic initiative shafting the IMF. By 2024, Dubai’s $5 billion safe-haven status attracted capital beyond Western reach, with a $2 billion China deal openly mocking traditional Western debt models.
All these subtle moves that go under the radar, narrows down to one single message that the UAE is sending out to the world: Why submit to the IMF’s austerity when Emirati cash flows freely, without conditions? And the regional players are hearing this. And they like what they see. The UAE doesn’t behave like a nation or a state. It behaves like a system. Like a BRICS platform on its own. Equalizing the playing field. Achieving a clean slate. Creating unrestricted options. By now, you understand the Axis of Resistance, the noble martyrs battling colonial powers to their deaths. And I think you have grasped the GCC’s diplomatic moves, steering the US away from perpetual conflict via economic strength. Now, you should to some degree, recognize the UAE’s distinct game of turning itself into the Middle East Bank.
And it’s doing this against the Western grip, pragmatically, amorally, and relentlessly. You need to understand that the UAE’s $40 billion military isn’t vanity; it’s a geopolitical fist aimed directly at America’s regional hegemony. Its financial muscle isn’t charity; it’s strategic leverage, rewriting trade rules independent of Western dictates. Its consumer might isn’t tourism, it’s calculated economic gravity pulling the Middle East away from Washington’s grip. Each calculated defiance, whether its Turkey, Yemen, Russia, Iran, Sudan, even Israel’s opposition factions, proves the UAE doesn’t require American permission and actively negates their interests in the regions. It has learned to dismantle the US-centric order not just through proxy violence, but through defeating them at their own game of relentlessly pursuing profits. Whether you like it or not, that’s what the UAE is independently pursuing. They have in effect, become our Middle East version of the US, to fight the US. And we’re not going to sit here from our moral ground and judge which weapons the UAE should morally abide by, and use against the West, when the US indiscriminately uses any means at their disposal to destroy and subjugate the Middle East. The UAE has consciously abandoned moral and ethical considerations, engaging in pragmatic, merciless objectives that forces a departure from traditional Islamic principles on warfare, economic justice, and human life itself. That’s the path it has chosen to confront America with. None of us get to decide what path it should choose. Because none of us have occupied such positions.
Ultimately, for the people watching the geopolitics unfold, the choice comes down to this; Do you prefer your nation remain tethered to American dominance and IMF austerity, or would you rather align with a neighboring regional hegemon, one that’s strategically outbidding the West, cutting its austerity through pragmatic leniency?
