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Exposed fault lines: Why the Saudi-UAE alliance has ruptured
A long-simmering Saudi-UAE rivalry has exploded into the open over Yemen's war, exposing a deeper rift over competing visions for the region
14.01.2026
By Giorgio Cafiero*
Source:https://www.newarab.com/analysis/exposed-fault-lines-why-saudi-uae-alliance-has-ruptured
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has long viewed itself as the anchor and natural leader of the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).
At various moments, Riyadh has perceived some of the smaller yet extraordinarily wealthy monarchies of the Arabian Peninsula as pursuing strategies that undercut Saudi interests and, by extension, Gulf Arab cohesion.
Conversely, several of Saudi Arabia’s GCC partners have accused the Kingdom of insufficient regard for their sovereignty, interpreting Riyadh’s regional posture as one of hegemonic ambition, rather than collective leadership - one that overlooks the smaller monarchies’ distinct national interests.
As Saudi analyst Ali Shihabi has recently observed, these dynamics first began to emerge in the 1960s and 1970s with Kuwait’s rapid oil-fuelled development.
From the latter half of the 1990s through the first two decades of the 21st century, Qatar followed a similar trajectory, leveraging vast gas revenues to chart an increasingly autonomous course and escape what Doha saw as the constraints of the “Saudi shadow.”
This evolution culminated in the GCC crises of 2014 and 2017–21, which laid bare the structural tensions within the sub-regional institution.
Riyadh and Abu Dhabi: From quiet competition to open friction
Observers of Gulf politics have also long noted the rivalry between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a dynamic that arguably crystallised in 2019 when Abu Dhabi’s approach to Yemen diverged from Riyadh’s strategy toward the Houthi rebels.
Additional sources of friction soon followed, including Saudi Vision 2030’s push to lure multinational corporations to establish regional headquarters in the Kingdom rather than in the UAE. Abu Dhabi’s normalisation with Israel under the Abraham Accords - contrasted with Saudi Arabia’s refusal to endorse that path - further underscored meaningful differences in regional outlook between the two GCC states.
UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed (MbZ) played a consequential role in facilitating Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman (MbS)’s rise to power and in securing early international backing, including from the Obama administration.
This afforded the Emirati leader considerable influence over the young Saudi prince, as underscored by the Kingdom’s decision to join the Emirati-led Arab campaign to squeeze Qatar in mid-2017.
Yet as MbS consolidated power and gained stature as an international statesman, particularly following his rehabilitation after the 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi, he grew increasingly confident.
In doing so, MbS appeared more willing to assert Saudi Arabia’s primacy within the GCC and to signal that the Kingdom’s leadership was not open to challenge from Abu Dhabi.
For years, analysts and journalists documented these dynamics largely as a discreet rivalry unfolding behind closed doors. That changed in late 2025, when developments in southern and eastern Yemen pushed Saudi-Emirati tensions to new and highly visible levels.
What had once been managed quietly became an overt source of bilateral friction, marking a decisive shift toward a more direct and less deniable confrontation between the two Gulf powers.
The turning point came in early December, when the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) seized extensive territory in southern and eastern Yemen. From Riyadh’s perspective, Abu Dhabi’s Yemen policy now exceeded mere provocation.
Saudi leaders concluded that the UAE’s principal Yemeni proxy had crossed a strategic “red line,” particularly through activities near the Saudi-Yemeni border. In response, Saudi Arabia issued unprecedentedly sharp official condemnations of Emirati policy and, on 28 December, undertook direct military action against the STC.
Although Saudi-backed Yemeni forces eventually recaptured the seized territories - developments that were soon followed by the STC’s dissolution as a political entity and the withdrawal of Emirati forces from Yemen - these events did not resolve the deeper rift between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi.
Rather than marking an end, they closed one chapter of a longer and more complex rivalry. In other regional arenas, including Somalia, Sudan, Israel-Palestine, and potentially Syria, Saudi-Emirati competition is likely to continue shaping geopolitical dynamics well into the future.
Dr Khalid Almezaini, Associate Professor of Politics and International Relations at Zayed University, stressed that these developments that shook southern and eastern Yemen beginning in early December 2025 did not create a “crisis” in Saudi-Emirati relations, but merely “exposed” one.
“This episode provides Riyadh with what it sees as an opportunity to hold the UAE accountable for behaviour it deems destabilising - from the Abraham Accords to assertive interventions in Africa and the Red Sea arena. From the Saudi perspective, these moves challenge its primacy and undermine what it considers acceptable regional conduct,” he told The New Arab.
“For the UAE, the escalation is not shocking, but it is certainly unwelcome and surprising in its intensity. Abu Dhabi has long been aware of the underlying tension, yet the directness of the Saudi response signals a new phase,” added Dr Almezaini.
The Zayed University professor expects this conflict between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi to persist for a “long time” even if there is public reconciliation between the Saudi and Emirati leaderships with symbolic gestures of Gulf Arab unity exchanged, because “the structural mistrust and competition will continue quietly beneath the surface”.
As Dr Almezaini explained, “the incident marks a recalibration of the bilateral relationship - one that will not return to the cooperative façade of previous years.”
Rising levels of tension between Saudi Arabia and the UAE are a result of Riyadh perceiving more than a policy disagreement with Abu Dhabi. At this point, Saudi Arabia sees the UAE’s foreign policy as nothing short of a “national security threat,” Dr Mira al-Hussein, fellow at the Alwaleed Centre at the University of Edinburgh, told TNA.
“Saudi felt encircled by UAE's projects in Yemen, the Red Sea rim, and the Horn of Africa, especially that these projects intersect with Israeli interests, serving the Abrahamic alliance, at the expense of the Saudi's security and geopolitical interests,” she explained.
“Additionally, Israeli OSINT accounts may have further fuelled Saudi mistrust with rumours that an Israeli military base will be constructed in Arada in the southern region, some 20 kilometres away from the UAE-Saudi border.”
Riyadh's threat perception and response
Against this backdrop - where Saudi Arabia and other regional states, notably Egypt, perceive a tangible threat emanating from the UAE-Israel “axis of fragmentation” - it becomes essential to assess the geopolitical implications of Riyadh’s efforts to align with like-minded regional actors.
These states share concerns over Abu Dhabi and Tel Aviv’s backing of separatist movements and entities, ranging from Yemen’s STC to the self-declared breakaway republic of Somaliland and Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
Speaking to TNA, Dr Hussein said a “parallel, Saudi-led alliance that would encircle the UAE, undermine its interests and reverse its gains in Yemen, Libya, and the Horn of Africa would certainly appeal to many regional states, who view the UAE's growing reach and influence as potentially threatening to their independent and collective national security, and destabilising to the region.”
Turkey cannot be overlooked when evaluating Saudi Arabia’s options for countering the UAE’s increasingly assertive foreign policy - particularly amid reports suggesting that Abu Dhabi may align with Israel in supporting Druze separatist forces in a post-regime change Syria.
Such a scenario could readily drive Riyadh and Ankara toward closer coordination, rooted in their shared determination to prevent Syria’s “Balkanisation” and their convergent view that Israeli aggression against the country poses a serious threat to regional security.
“The most interesting prospect in terms of regional alignments would be a revived Saudi-Turkish diplomatic axis. After the hostile bilateral relations in the aftermath of the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, that would be a significant change in regional politics,” noted Dr Gregory Gause III, a visiting scholar at the Middle East Institute in Washington, in a TNA interview.
“Ankara and Riyadh share support for the new government in Syria and worry about Israeli interference there. They also share a preference to maintain the regional map as it is, with Turkey opposing yet another de facto independent Kurdish region carved out of eastern Syria and Saudi Arabia opposing South Yemeni independence,” he added.
However, Saudi Arabia could face difficulties when attempting to form a regional bloc aimed at sidelining Abu Dhabi while positioning Riyadh as the stabilising force in the Arab world.
As Dr Almezaini told TNA, “The Saudis underestimate the depth of Emirati financial leverage, particularly in Egypt, where Abu Dhabi’s economic support is indispensable, and in Turkey, where the UAE has committed major investment funds. Neither Cairo nor Ankara will risk damaging their relationship with the UAE merely to align with a Saudi-led initiative.”
Additionally, countries which Saudi Arabia would like to bring into this bloc do not share all the same interests in the Horn of Africa, with Turkey and Saudi Arabia competing for influence there, making “genuine alignment against Abu Dhabi highly unlikely,” according to Dr Almezaini, who also stressed that Oman’s preference for “strict neutrality” rather than alignment with any GCC state against another will result in Muscat not joining a Riyadh-driven regional arrangement.
Lastly, the Emirati scholar points to the real risk of growing Saudi-Turkish coordination aimed at containing Abu Dhabi, further exacerbating, rather than resolving, tensions in the Gulf.
“Turkey will therefore be cautious: it may cooperate with Riyadh selectively, but not in ways that jeopardise its expanding partnership with Abu Dhabi. Therefore, Riyadh may try to reshape regional alignments, but the political economy of the region - and the UAE’s entrenched influence - means such efforts will have limited traction and significant risks,” he told TNA.
Comparisons to the 2017 Qatar crisis fall short
Some analysts have likened the growing tensions between Saudi Arabia and the UAE to the second GCC crisis that erupted in mid-2017. However, this comparison is of limited analytical value.
“What happened in 2017 was quite unique. Borders were closed. Ambassadors were recalled. That’s not happening now,” noted Dr Bader al-Saif, Assistant Professor of History at Kuwait University and Associate Fellow at Chatham House’s Middle East and North Africa Programme, in a TNA interview.
“The differences between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi are real here, but both sides have an interest in avoiding a bilateral escalation,” commented Dr Gause, who added that “since I do not think that there will be a serious public escalation between Saudi Arabia and the UAE, I think that the implications within the Gulf will be minimal.”
Dr Al-Saif also pointed out that the regional landscape eight-and-a-half years ago differs greatly compared to the present period, which also makes this analogy to the blockade of Qatar problematic.
“[The GCC states] were just off of the Arab uprisings, and they had different ways of seeing the future of the region. Today you have a different game. You have a weakened Iran. You have a much bolder Israel. You have, on the international front, a dubious claim to international standards that don’t exist,” he told TNA.
A pattern of divergence and recalibration in the Gulf
Despite the sharp rhetoric and the visible manifestations of rivalry that have emerged since late 2025, Gulf historians may caution against interpreting the current Saudi-Emirati rift as an unprecedented rupture or as a zero-sum struggle destined for open confrontation.
The Gulf’s modern political history is replete with periods of intense disagreement among its ruling families and states, often driven by shifting threat perceptions, leadership transitions, and competing visions for regional order.
Yet these moments have frequently been followed by recalibration rather than collapse, with pragmatic accommodation taking precedence over prolonged escalation.
Within the GCC, bilateral frictions have rarely unfolded along linear trajectories. Relationships that appear adversarial in one arena often remain cooperative in others, reflecting the deeply intertwined economic, security, and familial ties that bind the Gulf monarchies together.
Even as Saudi Arabia and the UAE increasingly compete for influence across the Middle East and Africa, both remain acutely aware of the risks that unchecked rivalry poses to regional stability, investor confidence, and their own long-term development agendas.
From this perspective, the current phase of tension can be understood less as a decisive break than as another cycle of divergence and adjustment - one shaped by evolving regional realities rather than ideological incompatibility. It is within this broader historical and structural context that some observers urge caution against overstating the durability or irreversibility of the present standoff.
“I look at this within the span of the last one hundred years. There isn’t something magical about what’s happening right now. It’s the interests of different states diverging, and they’ve expressed it as such. This has happened more than once between Saudi and the UAE, Saudi and Kuwait, between Qatar and the UAE, Bahrain and Qatar, and between Oman and the UAE. It’s not uncommon,” explained Dr Al-Saif.
“The upcoming period will see a mix of ups and downs, as we’ve seen in the past. I think both countries have a lot of converged interests with one another, and they’ll see the need to move ahead with a way that’s workable for both of them,” he concluded.
*Giorgio Cafiero is the CEO of Gulf State Analytics
Follow him on X: @GiorgioCafiero
Edited by Charlie Hoyle
A long-
14.01.2026
By Giorgio Cafiero*
Source:https://www.newarab.com/analysis/exposed-
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has long viewed itself as the anchor and natural leader of the six-
At various moments, Riyadh has perceived some of the smaller yet extraordinarily wealthy monarchies of the Arabian Peninsula as pursuing strategies that undercut Saudi interests and, by extension, Gulf Arab cohesion.
Conversely, several of Saudi Arabia’s GCC partners have accused the Kingdom of insufficient regard for their sovereignty, interpreting Riyadh’s regional posture as one of hegemonic ambition, rather than collective leadership -
As Saudi analyst Ali Shihabi has recently observed, these dynamics first began to emerge in the 1960s and 1970s with Kuwait’s rapid oil-
From the latter half of the 1990s through the first two decades of the 21st century, Qatar followed a similar trajectory, leveraging vast gas revenues to chart an increasingly autonomous course and escape what Doha saw as the constraints of the “Saudi shadow.”
This evolution culminated in the GCC crises of 2014 and 2017–21, which laid bare the structural tensions within the sub-
Riyadh and Abu Dhabi: From quiet competition to open friction
Observers of Gulf politics have also long noted the rivalry between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a dynamic that arguably crystallised in 2019 when Abu Dhabi’s approach to Yemen diverged from Riyadh’s strategy toward the Houthi rebels.
Additional sources of friction soon followed, including Saudi Vision 2030’s push to lure multinational corporations to establish regional headquarters in the Kingdom rather than in the UAE. Abu Dhabi’s normalisation with Israel under the Abraham Accords -
UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed (MbZ) played a consequential role in facilitating Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman (MbS)’s rise to power and in securing early international backing, including from the Obama administration.
This afforded the Emirati leader considerable influence over the young Saudi prince, as underscored by the Kingdom’s decision to join the Emirati-
Yet as MbS consolidated power and gained stature as an international statesman, particularly following his rehabilitation after the 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi, he grew increasingly confident.
In doing so, MbS appeared more willing to assert Saudi Arabia’s primacy within the GCC and to signal that the Kingdom’s leadership was not open to challenge from Abu Dhabi.
For years, analysts and journalists documented these dynamics largely as a discreet rivalry unfolding behind closed doors. That changed in late 2025, when developments in southern and eastern Yemen pushed Saudi-
What had once been managed quietly became an overt source of bilateral friction, marking a decisive shift toward a more direct and less deniable confrontation between the two Gulf powers.
The turning point came in early December, when the UAE-
Saudi leaders concluded that the UAE’s principal Yemeni proxy had crossed a strategic “red line,” particularly through activities near the Saudi-
Although Saudi-
Rather than marking an end, they closed one chapter of a longer and more complex rivalry. In other regional arenas, including Somalia, Sudan, Israel-
Dr Khalid Almezaini, Associate Professor of Politics and International Relations at Zayed University, stressed that these developments that shook southern and eastern Yemen beginning in early December 2025 did not create a “crisis” in Saudi-
“This episode provides Riyadh with what it sees as an opportunity to hold the UAE accountable for behaviour it deems destabilising -
“For the UAE, the escalation is not shocking, but it is certainly unwelcome and surprising in its intensity. Abu Dhabi has long been aware of the underlying tension, yet the directness of the Saudi response signals a new phase,” added Dr Almezaini.
The Zayed University professor expects this conflict between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi to persist for a “long time” even if there is public reconciliation between the Saudi and Emirati leaderships with symbolic gestures of Gulf Arab unity exchanged, because “the structural mistrust and competition will continue quietly beneath the surface”.
As Dr Almezaini explained, “the incident marks a recalibration of the bilateral relationship -
Rising levels of tension between Saudi Arabia and the UAE are a result of Riyadh perceiving more than a policy disagreement with Abu Dhabi. At this point, Saudi Arabia sees the UAE’s foreign policy as nothing short of a “national security threat,” Dr Mira al-
“Saudi felt encircled by UAE's projects in Yemen, the Red Sea rim, and the Horn of Africa, especially that these projects intersect with Israeli interests, serving the Abrahamic alliance, at the expense of the Saudi's security and geopolitical interests,” she explained.
“Additionally, Israeli OSINT accounts may have further fuelled Saudi mistrust with rumours that an Israeli military base will be constructed in Arada in the southern region, some 20 kilometres away from the UAE-
Riyadh's threat perception and response
Against this backdrop -
These states share concerns over Abu Dhabi and Tel Aviv’s backing of separatist movements and entities, ranging from Yemen’s STC to the self-
Speaking to TNA, Dr Hussein said a “parallel, Saudi-
Turkey cannot be overlooked when evaluating Saudi Arabia’s options for countering the UAE’s increasingly assertive foreign policy -
Such a scenario could readily drive Riyadh and Ankara toward closer coordination, rooted in their shared determination to prevent Syria’s “Balkanisation” and their convergent view that Israeli aggression against the country poses a serious threat to regional security.
“The most interesting prospect in terms of regional alignments would be a revived Saudi-
“Ankara and Riyadh share support for the new government in Syria and worry about Israeli interference there. They also share a preference to maintain the regional map as it is, with Turkey opposing yet another de facto independent Kurdish region carved out of eastern Syria and Saudi Arabia opposing South Yemeni independence,” he added.
However, Saudi Arabia could face difficulties when attempting to form a regional bloc aimed at sidelining Abu Dhabi while positioning Riyadh as the stabilising force in the Arab world.
As Dr Almezaini told TNA, “The Saudis underestimate the depth of Emirati financial leverage, particularly in Egypt, where Abu Dhabi’s economic support is indispensable, and in Turkey, where the UAE has committed major investment funds. Neither Cairo nor Ankara will risk damaging their relationship with the UAE merely to align with a Saudi-
Additionally, countries which Saudi Arabia would like to bring into this bloc do not share all the same interests in the Horn of Africa, with Turkey and Saudi Arabia competing for influence there, making “genuine alignment against Abu Dhabi highly unlikely,” according to Dr Almezaini, who also stressed that Oman’s preference for “strict neutrality” rather than alignment with any GCC state against another will result in Muscat not joining a Riyadh-
Lastly, the Emirati scholar points to the real risk of growing Saudi-
“Turkey will therefore be cautious: it may cooperate with Riyadh selectively, but not in ways that jeopardise its expanding partnership with Abu Dhabi. Therefore, Riyadh may try to reshape regional alignments, but the political economy of the region -
Comparisons to the 2017 Qatar crisis fall short
Some analysts have likened the growing tensions between Saudi Arabia and the UAE to the second GCC crisis that erupted in mid-
“What happened in 2017 was quite unique. Borders were closed. Ambassadors were recalled. That’s not happening now,” noted Dr Bader al-
“The differences between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi are real here, but both sides have an interest in avoiding a bilateral escalation,” commented Dr Gause, who added that “since I do not think that there will be a serious public escalation between Saudi Arabia and the UAE, I think that the implications within the Gulf will be minimal.”
Dr Al-
“[The GCC states] were just off of the Arab uprisings, and they had different ways of seeing the future of the region. Today you have a different game. You have a weakened Iran. You have a much bolder Israel. You have, on the international front, a dubious claim to international standards that don’t exist,” he told TNA.
A pattern of divergence and recalibration in the Gulf
Despite the sharp rhetoric and the visible manifestations of rivalry that have emerged since late 2025, Gulf historians may caution against interpreting the current Saudi-
The Gulf’s modern political history is replete with periods of intense disagreement among its ruling families and states, often driven by shifting threat perceptions, leadership transitions, and competing visions for regional order.
Yet these moments have frequently been followed by recalibration rather than collapse, with pragmatic accommodation taking precedence over prolonged escalation.
Within the GCC, bilateral frictions have rarely unfolded along linear trajectories. Relationships that appear adversarial in one arena often remain cooperative in others, reflecting the deeply intertwined economic, security, and familial ties that bind the Gulf monarchies together.
Even as Saudi Arabia and the UAE increasingly compete for influence across the Middle East and Africa, both remain acutely aware of the risks that unchecked rivalry poses to regional stability, investor confidence, and their own long-
From this perspective, the current phase of tension can be understood less as a decisive break than as another cycle of divergence and adjustment -
“I look at this within the span of the last one hundred years. There isn’t something magical about what’s happening right now. It’s the interests of different states diverging, and they’ve expressed it as such. This has happened more than once between Saudi and the UAE, Saudi and Kuwait, between Qatar and the UAE, Bahrain and Qatar, and between Oman and the UAE. It’s not uncommon,” explained Dr Al-
“The upcoming period will see a mix of ups and downs, as we’ve seen in the past. I think both countries have a lot of converged interests with one another, and they’ll see the need to move ahead with a way that’s workable for both of them,” he concluded.
*Giorgio Cafiero is the CEO of Gulf State Analytics
Follow him on X: @GiorgioCafiero
Edited by Charlie Hoyle