It took Russian President Vladimir Putin ten full months after the invasion of Ukraine before he finally described what his country was fighting as a war. Even then, he was effectively the only person permitted to use the term openly, while others could face prison sentences of up to 15 years for allegedly spreading false information.
A parallel dynamic is now visible in Washington. Six months after launching his second attack on Iran, US President Donald Trump continues to deny the scale of the war from which he has been unable to extricate himself, while some 50,000 US troops, 19 warships and two aircraft carriers remain tied to the conflict.
Whatever terminology is used for their deployment, Trump refuses to call it a war.
Last week, he dismissed the confrontation as “small potatoes”. At other times, he has described it in similarly minimising terms, portraying it as a minor skirmish, a slight detour or a short excursion that would last only a few weeks.
The exhausted crew of the USS Abraham Lincoln appears to have experienced something very different.
The aircraft carrier reached waters off Thailand last week after 286 consecutive days at sea. During a shore break in Pattaya, some crew members spoke to MS NOW Pentagon correspondent Priya Sridhar about the strain of the deployment.
Sridhar reported that several sailors described it as the worst deployment of their careers. They said they were desperate to return directly home and expressed concern that the war could normalise extraordinarily long deployments without regular port calls for rest.
The spectacle of the massive carrier finally making its slow journey towards San Diego under heavy escort has come to symbolise the futility of a war Trump appears unable to end.
US intelligence assessments have meanwhile suggested that Iran has emerged from the confrontation more confident in its capacity to retaliate and more determined to frustrate Washington’s objectives.
The New York Times, citing US officials, reported that Iran had gained a deeper understanding of its military strengths and developed greater confidence in its own capabilities.
A War That Refuses to End
While Trump continued to play down the extraordinary pressure the war has placed on the Pentagon, Iranian military spokesman Brigadier General Mohammad Akraminia announced that Tehran would soon move from a defensive and reactive posture towards a more offensive and pre-emptive strategy.
In remarks broadcast by Iranian state television, Akraminia said Iran would conduct what he called “pre-emptive operations” wherever it perceived an emerging threat, adding that the country’s military doctrine had already shifted towards what he described as pre-emptive defence and deterrence operations.
The United States and Israel are not the only powers seeking to normalise a state of permanent war across the region.
Rather than repeated Western military failures serving as a warning to other governments, the model of intervention has increasingly been copied by smaller rising states seeking greater regional influence.
One of the leaders pursuing such an approach, the article argues, is UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed.
Abu Dhabi may not possess an aircraft carrier, but it relies heavily on financial power, mercenary forces and fleets of aircraft accused of quietly transporting weapons to sustain a maritime network that now extends deep into Africa.
The UAE has developed an approach to regional intervention that depends less on a massive conventional military presence and more on covert logistics, allied armed groups and non-state actors.
One political analyst has described this model as resting on three principal mechanisms: air logistics, military equipment supplied to allied groups, and the use of non-state actors and militias as extensions of Emirati foreign policy.
The port of Bosaso in Somalia’s Puntland region illustrates the method.
Officially leased for commercial purposes by Emirati logistics giant DP World, the port has also been reported as serving as a concealed military transit point for weapons shipments destined for Libya and Sudan, contributing to conflicts in both countries.
The Power of Plausible Deniability
Plausible deniability is central to this strategy.
It allows Abu Dhabi to retain its status as a close Western ally while conducting operations that critics argue can run directly against Western interests.
Publicly, the UAE presents itself as a model of Arab prosperity, technological ambition and global openness. It markets itself as the country of immense wealth, spectacular infrastructure and seemingly impossible achievements, from the world’s tallest tower to extensive sponsorship of major football clubs including Manchester City and Arsenal, alongside numerous teams in the United States, Spain, France and Turkey.
The government has even created a ministerial portfolio for tolerance.
A 68-page document released seven years ago when Mohammed bin Zayed declared a Year of Tolerance described the UAE as a bridge connecting the world’s peoples and cultures in an environment of openness and respect that rejects extremism and promotes peaceful coexistence.
Critics, however, argue that a very different network operates beneath that image, involving alleged weapons trafficking, money laundering, gold smuggling, sanctions evasion, mercenaries and espionage.
The article presents these activities as part of a wider Emirati strategy conducted largely out of public view.
Since the Arab uprisings toppled rulers in Tunisia and Egypt, Mohammed bin Zayed has been accused of financing and engineering the military takeover in Egypt, while backing forces involved in conflicts in Libya, Yemen and Sudan.
He was also reported to have helped introduce Mohammed bin Salman, then a relatively little-known Saudi prince, to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and later to the Trump family and its associates, a relationship that preceded bin Salman’s rise to become crown prince and the kingdom’s de facto ruler.
Bin Zayed has also repeatedly warned Western leaders about what he portrays as the dangers of political Islam generally and the Muslim Brotherhood in particular.
An Emirati-Israeli Axis and the European Far Right
The UAE-Israel alignment has increasingly extended into European politics, particularly through rhetoric centred on Islamophobia and alleged threats from political Islam.
Last month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu referred to the United Kingdom as an “Islamic Republic of Britain”, comments made amid what the article describes as a coordinated attempt to inflame anti-Muslim sentiment in the country.
Several pro-Israel Emirati influencers subsequently spoke to British journalists and think tanks about the alleged threat posed by the Muslim Brotherhood and warned of what they described as an Islamic plot to take over Britain and the West.
These developments coincided with disclosures concerning an alleged Emirati espionage operation targeting British-Palestinian political figure Anas Altikriti.
At the same time, figures linked to Abu Dhabi have cultivated relationships with members of the European far right, including Reform UK leader Nigel Farage.
During a private event organised by right-wing broadcaster GB News on the roof of Dubai’s Ritz-Carlton in January, attended by UAE Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, Farage openly praised the country.
He said he looked around at Dubai’s palm trees and wished the British town of Clacton looked similar.
According to sources familiar with the gathering, Farage praised the UAE’s ban on the Muslim Brotherhood and said a Reform-led British government would take the same step.
Addressing Emirati officials, he reportedly said Britain had much to learn from them, described them as true friends and promised that a post-Brexit London under Reform would not forget them.
Western Interests Bind Abu Dhabi to London and Washington
The UAE’s influence extends well beyond political courtship in London.
It is the United Kingdom’s largest trading partner in the Middle East, with bilateral trade valued at around US$29 billion in 2022. More than 5,000 British companies operate in the country.
Its relationship with Washington is even more strategically important.
In July this year, the US Department of Commerce upgraded the UAE’s status under export administration regulations, easing restrictions and allowing greater access to exports including military equipment, commercial satellites and spacecraft.
This growing Western integration has coincided with an increasingly close relationship with Israel.
The article argues that Abu Dhabi has embraced that relationship despite Israel’s war in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
As the British government of Prime Minister Andy Burnham prepared to announce sanctions on goods produced in illegal Israeli settlements and considered further restrictions on military assistance, Israeli defence company Elbit Systems announced a US$2.3 billion contract with the UAE, described as the largest such deal in Israel’s history.
Sudan and Allegations of Emirati Support for War Crimes
The article argues that the UAE’s most consequential expansion has taken place in Africa, particularly in Sudan.
Sudan’s civil war has killed around 59,000 people and displaced 14 million others.
Substantial evidence from multiple reports has documented alleged war crimes by the Rapid Support Forces in Darfur, El Fasher and elsewhere.
Nazhat Shameem Khan, Deputy Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, has said that investigators are making tangible progress in their inquiries.
The UAE has repeatedly been accused of arming and financing the RSF through supply routes passing through Chad and Libya, while Colombian mercenaries have also reportedly been recruited to reinforce its ranks.
Emirati companies have additionally been accused of facilitating the movement of Sudanese gold to Dubai.
The UAE has denied allegations that it supports the RSF.
A senior advocacy official at Democracy for the Arab World Now argued that the issue went beyond failures of due diligence, describing it as a deliberate and sustained Emirati policy of arming a force credibly accused of atrocities.
He warned that continuing weapons transfers to the UAE risked complicity in serious crimes and argued that the international community already possessed sufficient evidence but lacked the political will to act.
Libya and the Architecture of Covert Intervention
A similar pattern appears in Libya.
A continuing stream of military cargo flights has reportedly travelled from Abu Dhabi or Al Dhafra Air Base towards Benghazi and Tobruk, with some operated by companies described as fronts.
The support has helped Khalifa Haftar, the de facto military ruler of eastern Libya and commander of the Libyan Arab Armed Forces, sustain and expand military operations despite the United Nations arms embargo.
The approach allows Abu Dhabi to project influence without deploying a large conventional force of its own.
Its power instead lies in financing, logistics, proxy forces, air transport and political relationships stretching across several countries.
When Hard Power Produces Political Blowback
The long-term viability of this strategy is increasingly open to question.
Tunisia is facing acute financial instability, Egypt is experiencing severe economic weakness, while Khalifa Haftar and his son are now reportedly exploring relations with Turkey, the same country whose direct military intervention prevented Haftar’s forces from capturing Tripoli.
Emirati operations in Yemen have also contributed to a serious and lasting rupture with Saudi Arabia.
Riyadh has increasingly moved to confront what it views as Abu Dhabi’s covert activities in Yemen, Sudan and the Horn of Africa.
At the same time, an emerging military alignment involving Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan may have a greater ability to attract states attempting to remain neutral in the region than a competing alignment centred on India, Israel and the UAE.
Faced with these setbacks, Mohammed bin Zayed has largely maintained his existing course.
Yet the accumulation of regional adversaries raises questions about the sustainability of that strategy.
There are also tensions within the UAE itself over what benefits Abu Dhabi and what benefits Dubai.
While Abu Dhabi announced a trade embargo against Iran, Iranian banks have continued to represent a lucrative source of business and revenue for Dubai.
Sparta, Athens and the Limits of Permanent War
The article closes with a historical comparison that challenges the UAE’s self-image.
Abu Dhabi has cultivated the idea of itself as a “Little Sparta”, a small state capable of projecting military power far beyond what its size would normally permit.
Sparta and its allies ultimately won the final phase of the conflicts with Athens now collectively known as the Peloponnesian War and installed oligarchic governments across parts of Greece.
The comparison drawn is that Abu Dhabi has sought to shape governments across North Africa in a similar fashion through its political and military interventions.
Yet history ultimately remembered Athens far more profoundly.
Athens, despite losing the war militarily, came to represent the classical Greek golden age in art, theatre, philosophy, architecture and democracy.
The article’s central argument is that military power alone cannot secure enduring political legitimacy.
In the contemporary world, legitimacy and political acceptance remain decisive forms of influence. From this perspective, the repeated failures of US-led wars since Kosovo are presented as evidence of the limits of hard power when it lacks sustainable political legitimacy.
Abu Dhabi, by modelling its regional strategy on the American and Israeli preference for permanent military intervention, may therefore be pursuing a form of power that produces immediate influence while steadily eroding the legitimacy required to preserve it.
