Today, a consequential fault line in the Middle East runs not just between Riyadh and Tehran but between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi — two capitals that share a region, a border, and a security patron, but little else in terms of strategic vision. Understanding this rivalry is no longer optional for serious American statecraft. It is a geopolitical condition that Washington will likely be navigating for years to come.
The two states have been drifting apart for years, but fractures have now surfaced across every major regional issue.
The Saudi–Emirati rivalry, which exploded into public view last December, is characterized by a deep divergence over what a post-American, or at least less American, Middle East should look like, who should lead it, and on what terms. The two states have been drifting apart for years, but fractures have now surfaced across every major regional issue: Yemen, the Horn of Africa, energy markets, relations with Israel, and the competition for economic dominance through diversification.
In 2015, Saudi Arabia and the UAE entered Yemen’s civil war as partners in a coalition against the Houthis. They left it, for all practical purposes, as rivals. The UAE backed the Southern Transitional Council, a separatist group that opposed the Saudi-supported goal of restoring Yemen’s internationally recognized government in Sanaa. The result was a war within a war, in which forces trained and armed by the UAE occasionally clashed with Saudi-backed units. The truce frameworks that followed never fully resolved the underlying question: Whose Yemen is it?
Across the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa, meanwhile, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have been projecting power and competing for port access, the right to establish military bases, and political influence in Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea, and Djibouti. The stakes are high. Control of Red Sea choke points and Horn of Africa logistics corridors is central to both countries’ long-term security strategies. Riyadh and Abu Dhabi are not coordinating; they are racing for dominance.
Energy policy has become another area of strategic competition. The UAE’s departure earlier this month from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) — which it joined to help regulate the international oil market — made that clear. Abu Dhabi’s decision was overdetermined: frustration with production quotas, confidence in its own production capacity, and a desire for strategic autonomy contributed to it. But at its core, it was a rejection of Saudi Arabia’s domination of OPEC. Riyadh, which has staked its Vision 2030 project on the assumption that it can manage global oil prices through cartel discipline, correctly interpreted the decision as a direct challenge. The two countries are now, in effect, energy competitors with fundamentally different market strategies.
The UAE bet early on integration with Israel as a pillar of its security architecture, while Saudi Arabia is building a security framework that does not require Israel.
The countries diverge most significantly over Israel. The UAE signed the Abraham Accords in 2020 and has steadily deepened its economic and security ties with Jerusalem. During the war with Iran, the relationship has crossed a threshold that would have been unthinkable even a year ago: Israel deployed an Iron Dome battery and military personnel to operate it on Emirati soil. This was the first time the system had ever been used outside Israel or the United States, and the first confirmed deployment of Israeli troops to an Arab Gulf state. Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, has conditioned normalization with Israel on concessions from Jerusalem and the United States that have so far proved undeliverable, instead investing its diplomatic energy in building a trilateral defense framework with Turkey and Pakistan. The UAE bet early on integration with Israel as a pillar of its security architecture, while Saudi Arabia is building a security framework that does not require Israel.
None of this means that the two countries are enemies. They share vital security interests, particularly regarding Iran, despite their radically divergent visions. They cooperate on counterterrorism. Their economies are intertwined. Saudi nationals are among the UAE’s largest sources of investment and tourism. But strategic rivalry and economic interdependence often coexist — just ask France and Germany — and the rivalry will define the policy challenges Washington faces in the Gulf.
American policymakers will be tempted to pick a side, but they should resist. The United States has deep and important interests in both countries, such as security cooperation, energy stability, counterterrorism, counterproliferation, and the regional balance of power. Choosing between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi would be strategically mistaken and practically impossible. Both relationships are essential to American foreign policy.
If we get the Iran endgame wrong, managing the Saudi–UAE rivalry will become an exercise in diminishing returns.
But that does not mean we can afford to ignore the matter. The Saudi–UAE rivalry will not be resolved by a summit or a phone call. It will shape the internal dynamics of every multilateral framework in the region, from the Gulf Cooperation Council to OPEC+ to the Abraham Accords themselves. Above all, American policymakers must recognize that the future of both relationships, and Washington’s leverage within each, rests on how the war with Iran concludes.
The post-Iran regional order will determine how Riyadh and Abu Dhabi compete, cooperate, and calculate their respective needs for American partnership. If we get the Iran endgame wrong, managing the Saudi–UAE rivalry will become an exercise in diminishing returns. If we get it right, the United States will retain the strategic position to shape a Gulf that works with American interests rather than around them. The first step toward a serious Gulf policy is admitting that our two most important Arab partners are playing very different games — and that managing the distance between them may be a defining feature of American strategy in the Middle East for the foreseeable future.
