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ABSTRACT
This article suggests based on the case study of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) that mercenaries as commercial surrogates can become an integral part of an overall effort of military transformation helping regimes in the Middle East to increase military capacity and capability on the battlefield. As the most assertive Arab state post-Arab Spring, the UAE arguably shows the greatest discrepancy between ambitiousness of its strategic objectives and available in-house capacity and capability among states in the region. Consequently, despite its ongoing military transformation, the Emirates more than any other Arab state had to inevitably draw on external surrogates to maintain their military presence in Somalia, Yemen, and Libya. Thereby, the case study of the UAE is quite exceptional in the region, as it has set a new trend for the commercialization of military services at the higher end of the military spectrum when translating capital into military capability and capacity. This in turn confronts Abu Dhabi’s western partners with difficult choices as they rely increasingly on the UAE to bear the burden of conflict in the region.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. Mazzetti and Hager, “Secret Desert Force Set Up by Blackwater’s Founder.”
2. Blackwater has been rebranded into Academi and is no longer under the management of Erik Prince.
3. Combat services are thereby on the higher end of the military and lethality spectrum of services provided by private military and security companies. See Kinsey, Corporate Soldiers and International Security, 11.
4. Cole, “The Complete Mercenary.”
5. Esfandiary, Changing security dynamics in the Persian Gulf: The case of the United Arab Emirates.
6. Krieg, “Defining Remote Warfare: The Rise of the Private Military and Security Industry,” 10.
7. Pollack, Arabs at War: Military Effectiveness, 1948–1991; Pollack, Armies of Sand: The Past, Present, and Future of Arab Military Effectiveness; Brooks, “Civil-Military Relations in the Middle East”; and Cronin, Armies and State-Building in the Modern Middle East.
8. See note 6 above.
9. Cole, “The Complete Mercenary.”
10. Krieg and Rickli, “Surrogate Warfare: the Art of War in the 21st century,” 115.
11. Krieg and Rickli, Surrogate Warfare, 58.
12. Ibid., 48.
13. Ibid., 59.
14. Krieg and Rickli, “Surrogate Warfare: the Art of War in the 21st century,” 124.
15. Krieg and Rickli, Surrogate Warfare, 120.
16. Taylor, “Review article Private security companies in Iraq and beyond,” 449.
17. Cusumano, “Bridging the Gap: Mobilisation Constraints and Contractor Support to US and UK Military Operations.”
18. Liu and Kinsey, “Challenging the Strength of the Antimercenary Norm.”
19. Krieg, Commercializing Cosmopolitan Security, 160.
20. Springborg, “Arab Militaries,” 147.
21. Pollack, Arabs at War: Military Effectiveness, 1948–1991, 248.
22. Feaver, “Civil Military Relations,” 216.
23. Quinlivan, “Coup-Proofing: Its Practice and Consequences in the Middle East.”
24. See Kinsey and Krieg, “Assembling a Force to Defeat Boko Haram: how Nigeria Integrated the Market into its Counterinsurgency Strategy.”
25. Pollack, Arabs at War: Military Effectiveness, 1948–1991; Pollack, Armies of Sand: The Past, Present, and Future of Arab Military Effectiveness; Brooks, Civil-Military Relations in the Middle East; and Cronin, Armies and State-Building in the Modern Middle East.
26. Talmadge, The Dictator’s Army: Battlefield Effectiveness in Authoritarian Regimes, 4–5.
27. Roberts, “Bucking the Trend: The UAE and the Development of Military Capabilities in the Arab World,” 311.
28. Krieg and Rickli, Surrogate Warfare, 22.
29. Sorenson and Damidez, “Fragments of an Army. Three aspects of the Libya collapse,” 157.
30. Barany, “Foreign Contract Soldiers in the Gulf.”
31. Lutterbeck, “Arab Uprisings and Armed Forces: Between Openness and Resistance,” 41; Noueihed and Warren. The battle for the Arab Spring – Revolution, counter-revolution and the making of a new era, 149.
32. Lutterbeck, “Arab Uprisings, Armed Forces, and Civil–Military Relations,” 42.
33. See note 18 above.
34. Narizny, The Political Economy of Grand Strategy, 11.
35. The Economist, “The Gulf’s Little Sparta.”
36. Worth, “Mohammed bin Zayed’s Dark Vision of the Middle East’s Future.”
37. Author’s Interview with UAE analyst II over Skype, 14 December 2019.
38. Roberts, “Bucking the Trend: The UAE and the Development of Military Capabilities in the Arab World.”
39. The vast majority of contract soldiers in the UAE are Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Sudanese and Omani. In the Emirati War in Yemen, evidence suggests that Chadians, Chileans, Colombians, Libyans, Panamanians, Nigeriens (from Niger), Somalis, Salvadorans and Ugandans act as force multipliers. Moreover, there are a range of Western contract soldiers in senior roles, such as American, British and Australian officers who joined the UAE Armed Forces after retirement. For more details see Zoltan Barany, Foreign Contract Soldiers in the Gulf’.
40. Interview with US-based, UAE-focused analyst over the phone, 14 January 2020 London.
41. Roberts, “Bucking the Trend: The UAE and the Development of Military Capabilities in the Arab World,” 328.
42. See note 9 above.
43. Krieg, “Laying The ‘Islamist’ Bogeyman To Rest.”
44. See note 1 above.
45. Ibid.
46. Mazzetti and Schmitt, “Private Army Formed to Fight Somali Pirates Leaves Troubled Legacy.”
47. Cole, “The Complete Mercenary.”
48. Fowler, “Somali Autonomy and the Failure of the Puntland Maritime Police Force.”
49. Cole, “The Complete Mercenary.”
50. Mazzetti and Schmitt, “Private Army Formed to Fight Somali Pirates Leaves Troubled Legacy.”
51. Author’s Interview with UK-based UAE analyst in London 11 December 2019.
52. Knights and Mello, “The Saudi–UAE War Effort in Yemen: Operation Golden Arrow in Aden. Washington Institute for Near East Policy.”
53. Fahim, “Houthi Rebels Kill 45 U.A.E. Soldiers in Yemen Fighting’.”
54. Hager and Mazzetti, “Emirates Secretly Sends Colombian Mercenaries to Yemen Fight.”
55. Author’s Interview with UK-based UAE analyst in London 11 December 2019.
56. Safi, “Joshua Robertson, Australian mercenary reportedly killed in Yemen clashes.”
57. Berdikeeva, “UAE Lures Foreign Mercenaries to Fight Proxy Wars.”
58. Brennan, “Yemenis Demand U.S. Arrest American Mercenaries Accused of ‘Blatant’ War Crimes’”; Roston, “A Middle East Monarchy Hired American Ex-Soldiers To Kill Its Political Enemies. This Could Be The Future Of War.”
59. Cornwell, “Emerging Gulf State cyber security powerhouse growing rapidly in size, revenue.”
60. De Young and Nakashima, “UAE orchestrated hacking of Qatari government sites.”
61. Ziv, “Mysterious UAE Cyber Firm Luring ex-Israeli Intel Officers With Astronomical Salaries.”
62. Bing and Schectman, “Inside the UAE’s Secret Hacking Team of American Mercenaries”; Biddle and Cole, “Team of American Hackers and Emirati Spies Discussed attacking the Intercept.”
63. Reuters, “UAE arranged for hacking of Qatar government sites, sparking diplomatic row: Washington Post.”
64. Mazzetti, “Adam Goldman, Ronen Bergman and Nicole Perlroth, A New Age of Warfare: How Internet Mercenaries Do Battle for Authoritarian Governments.”
65. Antwi-Boateng and Binhuwaidin, “Beyond rentierism: the United Arab Emirates exceptionalism in a turbulent region.”
66. Krieg and Rickli, Surrogate Warfare, 76/77.
67. Vasilyeva, “Thousands of Russian private contractors fighting in Syria.”
68. Faulconbridge, “Lawyers ask U.S., Britain to arrest UAE officials for war crimes in Yemen.”
69. Krieg and Rickli, Surrogate Warfare, 116 ff.
70. See note 1 above.
71. Ibid.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Andreas Krieg
Andreas Krieg is a lecturer at the School of Security Studies at King’s College London, Royal College of Defence Studies, and fellow at the Institute of Middle Eastern Studies. He is an expert of Middle Eastern security, combining his research interests in the wider field of unconventional warfare with a geographic expertise in the Middle East and North Africa region. His latest books include Surrogate Warfare – The Transformation of War in the 21st Century (Georgetown University Press, 2019) and Divided Gulf – The Anatomy of a Crisis (Palgrave, 2019).