In foreign policy-making, the UAE has been stressing the values of tolerance and support to international peace as tools to promote itself as a role model in the Arab world and beyond. Endorsing these values, which are part of the United Nations (UN) liberal-oriented narrative, the UAE aims to become a soft power “superpower” as well as a pioneer and mentor for other states in the region.
This top down strategy is possible since tolerance and support to international peace are fluid, vague concepts, which don’t have shared definitions; they can be differently understood and translated into policies according to agents’ political settings and strategies.
Emirati Role Model
In the last decade, the Emirati federation has increased its presence as well as the organization of global initiatives related to tolerance, peacekeeping operations and training for peacekeepers. The UAE aims to be internationally recognized as the model to follow. Therefore, the UAE’s strategy is a step beyond soft or smart power and it can be described as mentoring power, because it mixes hard and soft tools (like smart power), but into a strategy designed to have public impact through positive examples. However, the Emirati role model is purely about national power. In fact, the UAE is transforming some of the ´conceptual flags` of the institutions, like the UN, emerged from the post-1945 liberal world order, into brands useful to fulfil national prestige goals, and gain further in influence, through the empowerment of globally shared values.
The politics of tolerance reveals this strategy: the UAE organizes the World Tolerance Summit and established the International Institute for Tolerance in 2017. The Emirati state has institutionalized tolerance, with the appointment of a dedicated minister of state in 2016. As stated by the former Emirati Ministry for Tolerance, Sheikha Lubna bint Khalid Al Qasimi, in UAE: Public Policy Perspectives, “The UAE National Tolerance program rests on seven main pillars: Islam, UAE Constitution, Zayed’s Legacy and Ethics of the UAE, International Conventions, Archaeology and History, Human Nature, and Common Values”, thus juxtaposing national references and icons with universal claims. In this framework, Shaykh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the founding father of the nation, is portrayed as the first Emirati role model and this also intertwines the promotion of tolerance, defined as a “precious national resource”, with nation-building. Education comprises these values: the UAE established UNESCO-associated schools, it is engaged in restoring religious heritage sites and Sharjah hosts the UNESCO Regional Centre for Education Planning.
With regard to peace support operations (PSO), the UAE combines operative duties and training-mentoring skills: the latest play a special part in the role model strategy. After the first deployment abroad in 1976 as part of the Arab Deterrent Forces in Lebanon, Emirati peacekeepers consolidated their presence in international missions in the 1990s (in the US-led coalition to free Kuwait 1991; with the UN forces in Somalia in 1992; with the UN peacekeeping force in Kosovo in 1999). Between 2006-2013, about 250 Emirati soldiers from the special forces were engaged in Afghanistan as support staff of NATO-ISAF and also in full combat operations against the Taliban (alongside Jordan’s special forces) in Kandahar.
Nowadays, advising and training initiatives stress the peacekeeping dimension of the Emirati role model strategy. In 2018, an agreement between the UAE and Afghanistan allowed the envoy of about 60 Emirati soldiers in the Asian country as part of the NATO-led Resolute Support mission, with the task to advise and train Afghan’s elite forces engaged against terrorism. In the South of Yemen, Emirati special forces were at the forefront in training activities for local forces, some of them integrated later in the formal security sector. In 2018, the UAE’s Ministry of Defense (MoD) signed in New York an agreement with the UN Women to increase the number of female peacekeepers. As part of the deal, Abu Dhabi has started to train Arab female peacekeepers at Khawla bint Al Azwar Military Academy for Women, with a first batch of 134 women from UAE, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Yemen, Egypt and Sudan graduated in April 2019. The UAE is the first country to allow its MoD to train foreign citizens: the second batch is due to start training on January 2020 and it will include also women from Asia and Africa. After three months of basic military training, the recruits attend two weeks of peacekeeping training: at the end of the program, peacekeepers can serve in national sectors as well as in international operations.
The Emirati role model strategy, exemplified by the promotion of tolerance and the support to international peace, has consequences at the interplay of the domestic and the external fora. In fact, role model policies are not only focused on foreign policy: they are also designed to strengthen national bonds of cohesion among different cultures and communities at home, plus maximising the sense of belonging and patriotism among Emirati residents, both nationals and expatriates. For instance, peacekeepers are pictured as examples of peace building and tolerance spreaders: the exhibition “Protectors of the Nation: Generosity and Sacrifice” held at the Dubai Etihad Museum in 2018, comprised a section on peacekeeping and humanitarian operations around the world. According to a public statement “the exhibition also…explores UAE’s pioneering efforts in spreading tolerance, brotherhood and positive values worldwide through humanitarian missions”, thus linking directly the values of tolerance and the support to international peace.
Finally, what distinguishes the Emirati promotion of tolerance and the support to peace from the actions and goals of international institutions is the emphasis on stabilization, and not on democratization. In fact, stabilization -another comprehensive, vague concept with nuanced practical translations- is as broad as possible to contain both the soft and the hard power dimensions. This allows the UAE to develop, with minor contradictions, a multifaceted foreign policy able to fulfil its role model aspirations.
