After bearing the brunt of Iran’s missile and drone salvos, the United Arab Emirates is sparing no expense in building up its drone defense network ahead of a feared next round of fighting.
The damage inflicted on the UAE by Iran’s cheap Shahed drones has served as a wake-up call for the small Arab nation, exposing a gap in its air defense network. During the lull in fighting, it has expedited efforts to plug this gap, building up physical barriers and strengthening ties with experts in counterdrone technology, primarily Israel.
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The war has led to a breakthrough in relations between Israel and the UAE, with the true extent of their ties only coming out this week.
A burgeoning alliance
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office revealed that he had taken a secret trip to the UAE in the middle of combat operations against Iran. During the visit, Netanyahu personally met with UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed, and the meeting resulted in a “historic breakthrough in relations between Israel and the UAE.”
Israeli media reported that Netanyahu’s flight occurred while Israeli airspace was completely closed, yet no leaks of the trip emerged. The breakthrough hinted at in Netanyahu’s visit was the shipment of an Iron Dome battery, which had been reported earlier.
Former British diplomat Edmund Fitton-Brown, who has extensive experience in the UAE and broader region, told the Washington Examiner that Netanyahu’s visit was “important,” but “not surprising.”
“It’s a perfectly logical thing to do,” he said. “I think it definitely reflects the fact that you’ve got an emerging, not just understanding, but an emerging alliance between the UAE and Israel. And that is significant because we can’t really say that there’s ever been an alliance between an Arab country and Israel.”
The UAE, alongside Bahrain, became the first Gulf State to officially recognize Israel in 2020 as part of President Donald Trump’s Abraham Accords. Relations continued to improve but hit a bump from Arab backlash over the Israel-Hamas war.
The UAE was the primary target of Iran’s retaliatory strikes during Operation Epic Fury and Roaring Lion, sustaining more missile and drone attacks than Israel, despite not being an official belligerent. The attacks shattered any Emirati sympathies with Iranian rapprochement and helped push a full embrace of Israel.
In addition to Netanyahu’s visit, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that Mossad chief David Barnea traveled to the UAE twice during the war, in March and April. KAN News reported that Shin Bet chief David Zini also visited the UAE during the war and that the two countries closely coordinated on security and defense matters.
The new “alliance” between the UAE and Israel was also driven by the former’s growing rivalry with Saudi Arabia, Fitton-Brown said, and will lead the UAE to become more independent.
The UAE denied the claims that Netanyahu and other Israeli officials visited the country during the war.
“The United Arab Emirates denies what is being circulated regarding a visit by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the country, or the reception of any Israeli military delegation on its territory,” the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.
“The state affirms that its relations with Israel are declared relations, established within the framework of the known and announced Abraham Accords, and are not based on secrecy or hidden arrangements,” the statement reads, adding that “any claims about undeclared visits or arrangements have no basis in truth, unless issued by the competent official authorities in the United Arab Emirates.”
Plugging a key gap
Israel’s provision of the Iron Dome gives the UAE a major boon in its drone defenses, with its primary air defenses — acquired from the United States, Russia, South Korea, and Israel — focused on countering medium and long-range cruise and ballistic missiles. The defense network was ill-prepared for the hundreds of drones launched at the country, which both overwhelmed its few short-range defenses and forced it to counter in an uneconomic way.
“The UAE had heavily invested in air defenses prior to the conflict, but even those were not sufficient to fully mitigate Iranian attacks during the conflict, as the UAE found out the hard way,” Ryan Brobst, deputy director of FDD’s Center on Military and Political Power, told the Washington Examiner. “Therefore they requested, and Israel ended up deploying an Iron Dome system along with IDF soldiers to the country during the conflict to operate it.”
The Iron Dome is designed to be an economical way to intercept short-range missiles and drones, a capability the UAE largely lacks. Iran’s drone barrages heavily depleted its expensive interceptor missile stockpiles.
“It was not initially designed with drones in mind, but its capabilities did later expand to be able to handle drones,” Brobst said.
Israel is set to provide its anti-drone expertise in other areas, too, as its war with Hezbollah hones its abilities.
Fitton-Brown argued that the anti-drone advantage the partnership with Israel will provide may lead to further breakthroughs in Israel’s attempts to engage with the region. He said it’s “not beyond the realms of possibility” that Bahrain and Kuwait could “be part of a group that would buy into stronger defensive relations with the Israelis.”
THE UAE’S HAWKISH TURN WAS 15 YEARS IN THE MAKING
“I think protection from drones and air defense partnerships are going to be really important to [the Gulf countries] in the future, because they now know that for as long as the Islamic Republic exists … they know that they could be attacked again, with limited warning and not a great deal of restraint,” he said.
The Washington Examiner reached out to the Emirati Embassy for further information and comment.
