Overview
In the final days of 2025, shock advances by UAE-backed Yemeni separatists in the country’s south provoked a rare public confrontation between the UAE and its longtime strategic partner Saudi Arabia. Sweeping gains by the Southern Transitional Council (STC) in territories controlled both by the Iran-backed Houthi rebels and the Saudi-backed Internationally Recognized Government in Yemen (IRG) prompted a Saudi airstrike on an STC-controlled port and a burst of unprecedented anti-UAE rhetoric from Riyadh. Division between the two, historically considered the Gulf’s strongest duo, are not new, but last month’s events in Yemen lay bare their increasingly divergent visions for the region. Further friction between the major Gulf powers will create potential obstacles for regional stability, the US’ strategic objectives there, and the Gulf’s ambitious economic development goals.
Proxy Conflict in Yemen Lays Bare Divisions
Saudi Arabia and the UAE have been at odds in Yemen since 2019, when the UAE more fully embraced its policy of supporting the STC rather than fully withdrawing from the civil conflict and allowing Saudi Arabia to act as the primary anti-Houthi foreign force there. Over the ensuing years, Saudi Arabia largely tolerated a small Emirati presence in Yemen, its financial and military backing of the STC, and its hold over strategic territory in Yemen’s south, prominently including strategic islands along the Red Sea. While Saudi Arabia and the IRG envision a unified, non-federalized postwar Yemen, for several years alignment on opposing the Houthis was enough to prevent overt conflict between the IRG and the STC.
That changed with the STC’s surprise sweep through Houthi and IRG territory in late December and early January, which broke years of military stalemate to seize control of most of the provinces that comprised the former state of South Yemen. Notably, the territory included areas of the al-Mahra province where Saudi Arabia long hoped to build an oil pipeline that could circumvent the Strait of Hormuz chokepoint. Riyadh responded to the gains by conducting airstrikes on the port of al-Mukalla to disrupt a reported UAE-linked weapons shipment and unleashing a wave of unprecedented critical rhetoric directed at Abu Dhabi, accusing the country of “highly dangerous” behavior that could threaten its own security.
Escalation over proxy conflict in Yemen now appears to be at an end: in early January, the IRG retook much of the territory briefly held by the STC, the separatist group appears to have dissolve entirely–with several of its leaders fleeing to exile in the UAE or Sudan–and Abu Dhabi announced that it would fully withdraw its remaining troops from the country. Nonetheless, the root causes for the UAE-Saudi divergence – and a potential broader rift – remain unresolved.
The Roots of UAE-Saudi Divergence: Competing Visions for the Region
From the late 2000s to the mid-2010s, Saudi Arabia and the UAE were largely considered to be acting in strategic lockstep – a dual regional superpower with shared goals of bolstering the region’s salience as a global economic hub, keeping oil markets stable, and combatting political Islamism that both monarchies saw as an existential threat. This close partnership has been reflected in the relationship between their leaders: President Mohammed bin Zayed, de facto ruler of the UAE since 2014 and an influential force for years earlier, is reported to have acted as a mentor for Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and supported his consolidation of power in the early 2010s. Riyadh and Abu Dhabi presented a largely united front on issues such as Iran, its proxies in Yemen, Lebanon, Gaza, and elsewhere, the Muslim Brotherhood (such as the 2017 Gulf Cooperation Council blockade of Qatar over its ties to the group), oil production, and others.
In recent years, however, the two countries’ visions for the region diverged. Much of this split has hinged on the perception of the threat posed by political Islam, of which both countries – hereditary monarchies with limited political liberties – are wary to increasingly varying degrees. Saudi Arabia now prioritizes regional stability above all to enable its economic development plan. This has made it more willing to deal with Middle Eastern governments as they are, accepting Islamist or Islamist-aligned regimes in Yemen, Syria, Qatar, Iran and elsewhere as suitable partners for peacemaking. The UAE, on the other hand, is espousing what some (and certainly Riyadh) consider a more revisionist strategy, backing anti-Islamist actors even if they threaten to disrupt the status quo. Saudi Arabia increasingly sees the UAE as a disruptor in the region, backing secessionist and anti-state groups – often hand in hand with Israel, as in the case of both Somaliland and Syria – that threaten Riyadh’s regional stability.
This strategic divergence has emerged in various theaters in the Gulf and its sphere of influence. In Africa, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are at odds in Sudan. Saudi Arabia backs the country’s legacy government power, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), while the UAE supports the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a rebel paramilitary force that once operated under the Sudanese government but has sought to establish a rival state since 2023. This split is also driven by differing conceptions of the risks posed by political Islamism; the RSF is publicly anti-Islamist, while the SAF contains remnants of Muslim Brotherhood-linked elements from the era of former dictator Omar al-Bashir. Last week, Saudi Arabia and the US presented a new peace proposal to the warring parties which excluded the UAE, unlike previous rounds. The UAE and Saudi Arabia have also recently clashed in Somalia; Saudi Arabia does not recognize the semi-autonomous territory of Somaliland, with which the UAE has deepened ties in recent years (prominently including the planned construction of a naval base and airport on the key Bab al-Mandeb strait)In mid-January, Saudi Arabia initiated talks on advanced military cooperation with Somalia; concurrently, Somalia canceled all agreements with the UAE, ostensibly over its rumored involvement in Israel’s recognition of Somaliland.
In the Middle East, the UAE’s reluctance to wholeheartedly support the IRG as the successor government in Yemen is partially due to Muslim Brotherhood-linked al-Islah party, part of the opposition in the IRG’s congress. In Syria, both countries have offered warm welcomes to the Islamist government of former Hayat Tahrir al-Sham leader Ahmed al-Sharaa. In recent weeks, however, Saudi Arabia has reportedly become wary that the UAE is cultivating ties with the Druze, a minority group to which Israel has offered protection as part of its efforts to maintain influence and a territorial presence in southern Syria.
Notably, some of these efforts, like Somaliland and Syria, put the UAE in strategic alignment with Israel, its diplomatic partner since the signing of the Abraham Accords in 2022 (which brought with it economic and strategic boons, including goodwill from Washington). While Saudi Arabia also ultimately sees Israel as an integral element of a stable, prosperous Middle East, the country is not yet willing to formalize ties with Jerusalem and may be chafing at its growing strategic alignment with Abu Dhabi.
Saudi Arabia’s ambitious Vision 2030 plan for a post-oil economy also puts the traditional allies in competition. Saudi Arabia is seeking to develop a private sector that generates both tax revenue and jobs as it anticipates an eventual global pullback from hydrocarbons (from which the country – the largest in the Middle East – generates many of its jobs and virtually all its state budget). Riyadh’s targeted development areas – tourism, tech, logistics, downstream hydrocarbon products, and more – place it in direct competition with the UAE, the smaller, wealthier (per capita) country that is years, if not decades, ahead. In this respect, the UAE likely feels more able to gamble on regional stability – a consideration that Saudi Arabia appears to be seeing as a calculated attempt by Abu Dhabi to win the zero-sum game of the Gulf pivot from oil.
Implications for Regional Stability and the US
Daylight between the once rock-solid allies in Riyadh and the UAE poses risks of significant regional disruption, from the economic to the diplomatic. The risk of direct military confrontation is negligible – Riyadh and Abu Dhabi’s economies are deeply intertwined, both countries remain mutually interested in regional stability, and are ostensibly partners in arenas like Lebanon, Syria and Gaza. Heightened proxy conflict is certainly a possibility, however; while Yemen has cooled, continued fighting in Sudan is likely, and tensions between Somalia and Somaliland, where the UAE will be motivated to maintain its military basing, are high. Saudi Arabia and the UAE are poised to potentially oppose each other in other Horn of Africa hotspots, like South Sudan or brewing tensions between Ethiopia and Eritrea.
A rift could also pose economic costs. A Saudi government affiliated news service last week alluded to economic measures following clashes in Yemen, saying that “the Kingdom will not hesitate to take the necessary steps” to impose costs on the UAE, such as potential restrictions on trade. The 2017-2021 GCC blockade of Qatar – orchestrated by Saudi Arabia and the UAE – cost the involved countries estimated billions in lost trade and labor disruptions and created logistical challenges for businesses (direct flights between Qatar and many Gulf countries were completely suspended, for example).
Perhaps the biggest loser of a potential Emirati-Saudi rift would be the US, which counts both countries as key regional allies. The bulk of Washington’s military capabilities in the region relies on smooth interoperability and intelligence sharing between its allies. If any one partner were to refuse to cooperate with another, US operations in the region would be slower, more complicated, and less effective. Intra-GCC conflict could also create opportunities for Iran to make inroads and better its own position (as it did in Qatar during Doha’s four-year exile). With US rhetoric against Iran on the rise once again, new Houthi maritime strikes on the table, and a perpetually fragile Israel-Hamas ceasefire in Gaza, diminished capacity in the Middle East would reduce the US’ options there in a tense moment.
