Since its founding in 1971 — and especially under its current leadership — the United Arab Emirates has striven to impress. The approach has paid off. Companies from around the world have opened branches in the United Arab Emirates and in its two largest city-states, Abu Dhabi and Dubai. But the country's success has been hard-won.
The United Arab Emirates' wealth and prestige are only a few years older than the nation itself. When the United Kingdom established the Trucial States in 1820 to increase its control over maritime tribes in the area, the sheikhdoms that today make up the United Arab Emirates were little more than backwater trade posts. Fishing and pearl trading were still the main sources of revenue for these desert communities on the Persian Gulf. What the region lacked in economic prospects, however, it made up for in location. The Trucial States afforded the United Kingdom an ideal vantage point from which to monitor its trade and activities in Iran, India and Africa. In exchange, the Trucial States got security guarantees from the British armed forces while continuing the trade with Iraq, Iran, India and countries in sub-Saharan Africa that had sustained the territory for centuries prior.
Then the discovery of oil in Saudi Arabia in 1938 set off an oil rush throughout the Persian Gulf region as local leaders wondered whether their territories, too, contained undiscovered deposits. Toward the end of the next decade, British forces withdrew from the Trucial States after nearly 150 years there, prompting the rulers of its constituent sheikhdoms to band together in the absence of the United Kingdom's aegis. The resulting alliance, founded by Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan al-Nahyan of Abu Dhabi, was a loose federation of powerful tribes and ruling families that became known as the United Arab Emirates. (Bahrain and Qatar declined to join the federation, but when Iran's revolution eight years later shocked the Persian Gulf region, they came together with the Emirates, Kuwait, Oman and Saudi Arabia to form the Gulf Cooperation Council.)
In the short time since, the United Arab Emirates has undergone a dizzying transformation, unmatched even by its fellow GCC members. Though Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait have established renowned financial sectors, they pale in comparison with that of the United Arab Emirates. And as the country's clout has increased, it has also taken on a more assertive role in regional foreign policy. The Emirati government supplies rebel groups in Syria with aid and equipment and supports various factions in Libya as well. But its activities abroad have sometimes come at a cost to Abu Dhabi. The country, for instance, has drawn criticism for its involvement, alongside Saudi Arabia, in Yemen's civil war. Yet in spite of any obstacles, Emirati leaders have demonstrated that they will not allow them to halt the country's success.
