Key takeaways
• The world is undergoing a transition from economic globalization to the “militarization of globalization,” in which trade, energy, supply chains, and technology have become instruments of geopolitical competition rather than merely mechanisms of economic integration.
• In the twenty-first century, power is no longer measured solely by military or economic size, but increasingly by a state’s capacity for resilience, endurance, and adaptation amid prolonged crises and instability.
• The UAE presents a modern model of power that combines strategic discipline with global openness, seeking to reconcile two historical paradigms: the Spartan model centered on deterrence and the Athenian model centered on commerce and openness.
• The greatest challenge facing the UAE — and open states more broadly — is maintaining a balance between openness, strategic resilience, and sustainable adaptability, because deeper integration into the global system also increases exposure to fragility and disruption caused by escalating crises and conflicts.
• The significance of the Emirati experience extends beyond the Gulf itself, not because it represents a flawless or fully replicable model, but because it constitutes one of the earliest and most sophisticated attempts by a smaller state to adapt to an era of armed globalization.
For decades, the central dilemma facing states in the Middle East was relatively straightforward: how to acquire power in an unstable region. Today, the challenge is far more complex. States must now learn how to remain deeply integrated into the global economy without becoming strategically vulnerable to it.
This shift reflects a broader transformation in the international system itself. Power in the twenty-first century is no longer defined solely by military capabilities or territorial control. It increasingly depends on the ability to secure trade routes, protect critical infrastructure, sustain supply chains, control technological ecosystems, and preserve economic continuity during periods of geopolitical disruption.
In this emerging order, resilience is becoming a form of power.
A Different Model of Statecraft
The United Arab Emirates appears to be among the first states in the Middle East attempting to adapt systematically to this reality. What Abu Dhabi is constructing goes beyond economic diversification or regional influence. It is developing a broader model of statecraft designed for an era in which geopolitical fragmentation and global interdependence coexist.
This is why the comparison between Sparta and Athens is more than a historical analogy. Sparta represented strategic discipline, deterrence, and permanent readiness for conflict. Athens embodied maritime commerce, openness, financial dynamism, and cultural influence. Historically, states tended to excel at one model while struggling to sustain the other.
States built primarily around military hard power often sacrificed economic dynamism and institutional flexibility. States built around openness and globalization frequently discovered that interdependence could become a source of strategic exposure once geopolitical competition intensified.
But the nature of strategic competition has changed.
The defining assets of geopolitical influence are no longer limited to armies and territory. Ports, energy corridors, subsea cables, logistics systems, artificial intelligence, financial networks, and digital infrastructure have become equally central to national power. Increasingly, wars themselves are not simply contests over land, but struggles over the flows that sustain the global economy.
The result is not the collapse of globalization, but its militarization.
Economic interdependence has become deeply embedded within geopolitical competition itself. Trade routes, semiconductors, energy supplies, shipping lanes, rare earth minerals, and technological ecosystems are increasingly treated as instruments of strategic leverage. The war in Ukraine, instability in the Red Sea, tensions surrounding Iran, and the intensifying rivalry between the United States and China all point toward the same conclusion: geopolitics has returned forcefully, but within a world more interconnected than at any previous point in modern history.
In such an environment, the most influential states may not necessarily be the largest or most populous. They may instead be those most capable of managing systemic risk without collapsing beneath it.
This is where the Emirati model becomes strategically significant.
Balancing Openness and Strategic Resilience
Abu Dhabi recognized earlier than many regional actors that the era of the permanently protected Gulf order was gradually eroding. The United States remains the Gulf’s principal security partner, but American power no longer generates the degree of strategic certainty that defined the post–Cold War regional system. Increasingly, major powers appear less capable of imposing stable order and more focused on managing instability at an acceptable cost.
That shift has important implications for smaller states. Rather than waiting for great powers to produce order externally, some states are beginning to construct resilience internally.
The UAE’s response has involved more than military modernization or the expansion of strategic partnerships. It has sought to develop what might be described as a resilient strategic state: one capable of defending itself militarily while simultaneously preserving economic continuity, securing infrastructure, protecting energy and trade flows, absorbing shocks, and sustaining functionality during prolonged periods of regional turbulence.
This distinction matters because continuity under pressure is itself becoming a strategic capability.
Throughout much of the modern Middle East, states traditionally derived legitimacy from promises of protection. Increasingly, however, the UAE appears to be grounding legitimacy in adaptability, performance, and institutional resilience.
This logic helps explain Abu Dhabi’s strategic approach to globalization. Ports are no longer viewed merely as commercial infrastructure, but as geopolitical assets. Supply chains are increasingly treated as components of national security. Artificial intelligence is no longer simply a technological sector, but a strategic domain shaping future distributions of power. Sovereign wealth, aviation, logistics, and connectivity are all becoming instruments through which states project influence within an unstable international system.
In this sense, the UAE has positioned itself not simply as a Gulf state, but as a strategic connector linking Asia, Africa, Europe, and the wider Indian Ocean system through finance, energy, trade, technology, and logistics.
The Challenge of Building Sustainable Adaptability
Yet the same openness that generates influence also generates vulnerability.
In the era of hybrid conflict, geopolitical competition is increasingly targeting the infrastructure of connectivity itself. Ports, shipping corridors, energy facilities, digital networks, financial systems, and subsea cables are becoming front lines of strategic confrontation. The crises in the Red Sea and the Strait of Hormuz demonstrated that disruptions to global flows can now produce geopolitical consequences comparable to those of conventional military escalation.
For highly connected states, success itself can become a source of fragility unless paired with continuous adaptation.
This is why the Emirati project ultimately represents something larger than economic modernization or military advancement. It is an attempt to answer one of the defining strategic questions of the twenty-first century: how can a state remain deeply open without becoming strategically fragile?
That question extends far beyond the Gulf.
The emerging international order is increasingly shaped by the convergence of economics, security, technology, and geopolitics into a single competitive arena. In such a world, endurance may matter more than dominance. The states most likely to succeed may not be those with the greatest raw power, but those most capable of maintaining resilience while remaining connected to global systems.
For this reason, the UAE experience deserves broader international attention. Not because it offers a flawless model free of contradiction, but because it reflects one of the earliest and most sophisticated attempts by a smaller state to adapt to an age of armed globalization.
In that sense, the comparison between Sparta and Athens no longer describes only the UAE. It increasingly captures a broader transformation taking place in the architecture of international power itself.
Dr Ebtesam Al Ketbi is the president of the Emirates Policy Centre.
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