The UAE is a state that is active in all areas of development and enjoys regional and international status that is growing more powerful with time. Recently, this became evident after the leading state in development celebrated its Golden Jubilee, marking 50 years since the nation was founded. For some people, it is the land where dreams can come true, and for others it is a place where hope can be made, or a favorable environment for capital investment.
The UAE inaugurated its strategy for the next fifty years laying out ten guiding principles to sustain its course of development thanks to which the state gained international reputation. Those principles will allow the UAE to continue to compete with advanced nations in securing a dignified life for people through keeping the focus on its experience of unification and enhancing its economic development so as to contribute towards regional stability.
Questions are being raised now about what will happen in 2022, in which the UAE will launch its second fifty years. How is this state going to deal with a volatile region to resolve complicated issues, and achieve convergence of different views while maintaining equal distance from differing parties, which are the toughest challenges? Will it be able to carry out its strategy and avoid attempts by its rival to obstruct its efforts?
Among the best tools for anticipating the future of strategic projects launched by states is to analyze the political principles laid out by the UAE leaders as a roadmap and a general framework for the country’s foreign policy. This will allow measuring communication or lack of communication with the state’s political heritage, and drawing up analysis and a timeline of its diplomacy reflecting interests, goals, determinants and challenges.
Regional movements
The UAE began to implement its “zero-problems” diplomacy across the region and took it up as a headline for the goals related to stability in the Middle East that were set in the ten principles. Following the Arab Gulf reconciliation, reached at al-Ula Summit, Saudi Arabia in January 2021, the UAE took a step towards Syria when Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan visited Damascus on November 9. During the visit, he met Syrian President Bashar Assad to make an Arab diplomatic breakthrough. Later, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, visited Turkey to meet President Recep Tayyib Erdogan on November 24. During the visit, the UAE announced plans to launch a USD 10 billion fund to support investments in Turkey. On the same day, Iran's deputy foreign minister, Ali Bagheri Kani, who is also Iran’s top nuclear negotiator, visited the UAE. Later on December 6, Sheikh Tahnoun bin Zayed Al Nahyan, National Security Adviser, visited Tehran where he met President Ebrahim Raisi, to discuss ways of promoting bilateral relations.
These visits represent the second most important moves made by the UAE at the regional level after the Abraham Accords. Then, the UAE surprised all by a powerful diplomacy that is able to accomodate strategic shifts in this region and address them in a flexible, steady and bold manner, all the while maintaining its diplomatic activity regarding other global issues.
This is considered as part of preparing for the next stage in 2022, when the UAE will assume its seat as a non-permanent member of the Security Council, and launch new global initiatives for development. All this is the true embodiment of the ten principles through sustaining development at home while strengthening the state’s role abroad.
Collaborative frameworks
The layout of the ten principles of the UAE’s next fifty years shows that they are, at core, based on the state’s political legacy, and emanate from its experience in development and global image, which the state translated into a work plan for the next fifty years.
Emirati values have been built in the fifty years since the establishment of the state. They are based on keeping people at the center because they are the actual wealth of the nation. This approach was founded by the founder of the UAE, the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan. The approach was the foundation for the whole process of development and foreign relations, especially in the geographical proximity that has direct negative or positive impact on the state’s security and interests.
Prioritizing people and their issues became the driving force of all the UAE’s foreign movements, as highlighted in the ten principles. These principles consolidate the UAE’s choice of humanity as a framework through which it can sustain its development and achieve further success through cooperation, collaboration and sharing benefits with the world. Through it, and in collaboration with other states, it can face the challenges, address the burdens, resolve issues and regional and international conflicts.
The UAE will work on materializing this perception through its presence in international organizations, including its membership in the Security Council, as well as its presidency of global police agency Interpol through which the UAE will seek to advance the fight against organized crime and upgrade relevant tools to achieve the goals of global stability and development.
Additionally, being a member of the UN Human Rights Council represents a significant opportunity for the UAE to promote its goals of achieving human coexistence and global understanding, introducing Western societies to Arab and Muslim values, while also explaining the limits and features of differences in politics as well as making it clear that convergence and interaction between nations and societies should not come at the expense of stability, specificities and matter regarded as sacred.
On a parallel course, as the UAE is getting more involved in the global fight against environmental threats and challenges, it will play host to the 2023 UN Climate Change Conference (COP 28), after its active presence in the COP 26 conference held in Glasgow in November this year.
Overall, in 2022, the UAE will work towards laying out new forms of deal with the region and beyond on what international relations should be like, and on how to address issues and crises. A major objective of the UAE’s activity will be to de-escalate tensions and mitigate differences between states, and move towards cooperative formulas and settlements within geographical proximity to materialize a “let's all win” approach.
Prioritizing the economy
In the first three of the ten principles it laid out recently, the UAE seeks to ensure sustainability of its development in a more diverse manner due to the changing nature of challenges. This is not a source of concern for the UAE alone, but for the whole region and the world beyond. That is why the UAE is keen on promoting cooperation with all states, based on a convergence of economic interests, avoidance of provocation of and collision with others, while also focussing its endeavors on competition for achieving progress and excellence. This would automatically lead to establishing the image of a state that is a trustworthy member of the international community.
Today, the UAE maintains relations with all countries, and is home to people of all nationalities regardless of their beliefs. The UAE maintains that all people are its friends, and has the firm conviction that it is highly important to redefine inter-Arab relations based on interests as the best way for ensuring firm, permanent and advanced relations. This became especially important following experiences by other Arab states that failed to last because they prioritized politics over economy. Through this proposed approach, the UAE highlights that benefits are reciprocal and that interests are common and collective and free from exploitation and opportunism.
In conclusion, the UAE’s vision for, and basic premises for defining and playing a regional and international role through 2022 are based on the ten principles that the state proclaimed as its main reference guide. That is, these principles will guide the UAE’s diplomatic activity and reflect its leaders’ firm belief that the country’s economic growth hinges on regional stability that will bolster its status as an incubator of foreign investments and enables it to help other states find their way out of their crises.
That is why the UAE is making diplomatic efforts to spare the Middle East any confrontations. Keeping the economy at the center of work is because it is the real driving force of international relations. This offers an implicit proof that the UAE is not seeking to interfere in the internal affairs of other states in this region, i.e. regarding political issues. The UAE has always been keen on shaping and putting the principles to work basically within economic and humanitarian contexts because it works towards bringing peoples together.
