Introduction
Africa’s geopolitical, strategic, and economic significance for the UAE is both multifaceted and vital. Owing to Africa’s strategic diversity and growing importance, the need for a multidimensional UAE foreign policy toward Africa has become increasingly imperative. The UAE’s multidimensional foreign policy in Africa is characterized by a combination of economic cooperation and investment, interventionist and, at times, destabilizing policies, humanitarian assistance, and pragmatic neutrality. At the same time, it pursues a sophisticated balancing strategy aimed at expanding its influence while competing with both regional and global powers.
The present study aimed to provide an in-depth and insightful analysis of the UAE’s actions in Africa. Adopting the logic of sub-imperialism as its central analytical framework, it sought to answer the following question: How can the UAE’s model of influence in Africa be explained through the lens of sub-imperialism? It argued that the UAE’s model of influence could be understood as a form of sub-imperialism driven by the interaction of three principal logics—economic centrality, global ambition, and the management of geopolitical constraints—and facilitated through the use of proxy networks.
Literature Review
A substantial body of literature addresses the UAE’s foreign policy in Africa, focusing on its economic, security, military, and geopolitical aspects. The notable studies include “The Fragile Coalition and Political Competition Between the UAE and Saudi Arabia in Yemen (2015–2020)” (Hedayati Shahidani & Babaie, 2021), “Aligning Religion With Foreign Policy: The Case of the UAE” (Rafiee Ghohsareh, 2023), and “The Impact of Globalization on Green Economy Policymaking in the Arab States of the Persian Gulf: The Case of Saudi Arabia and the UAE (2015–2024)” (Momeni & Damirchi, 2025). The existing literature has largely focused on specific dimensions or limited aspects of the UAE’s foreign policy in Africa. Representative studies include “The United Arab Emirates Engagement in Ethiopia: Implications for the Horn of Africa’s Geopolitical and Security Landscapes” (Gebru, 2025), The “Economy First” Doctrine: Projects of the 50 and the Business Impact of the U.A.E.’s Recent Foreign Policy Shift (Molavi, 2022), “The Regional Influence of the United Arab Emirates in West Asia and North Africa” (Jafari Far & Khani, 2022), and “Africa in the Top Documents of the United Arab Emirates’ Foreign Policy (PourEsmaeili, 2025).
It seems that a comprehensive examination of the underlying nature of the UAE’s multidimensional foreign policy—one that integrates its economic, security, military, diplomatic, and geopolitical dimensions—remains lacking. Existing studies have largely focused either on economic investments or on the military aspects of UAE engagement, while a holistic analysis of interaction among these dimensions, and of how they collectively shape the UAE’s broader strategy in Africa, remains an important research gap. This lack of analytical comprehensiveness provides an opportunity for further research to develop broader and more integrative approaches capable of illuminating the complexities and contradictions of the UAE’s policies in the region, thereby contributing to the existing scholarly literature.
Materials and Methods
This study employed a qualitative approach based on an interpretive–explanatory methodology to analyze the UAE’s model of influence in Africa. The interpretive analysis focused on the meaning and logic underlying the UAE’s foreign policy behavior through an analysis of official documents, economic and security policies, and patterns of interaction with regional and extra-regional actors. This phase sought to clarify how the UAE’s strategic objectives and preferences were formulated and articulated.
Concerning the explanatory analysis, the data was analyzed through the theoretical lens of sub-imperialism in order to identify and conceptualize the causal mechanisms underlying the expansion of UAE influence in Africa. The study drew on qualitative analysis of policy documents, international reports, and relevant scholarly literature as its primary sources of data. Through a mechanism-based analytical approach, it examined the relationship between key factors—including economic centrality, the pursuit of international status, geopolitical considerations, and reliance on proxy networks—and the emergence of a sub-imperialist model in the UAE’s foreign policy. This approach enabled the researcher not only to interpret the meaning of foreign policy actions but also to systematically analyze the causal logic linking structural conditions to the UAE’s operational strategies.
Results and Discussion
Sub-imperialism is not merely a label applied to the UAE’s foreign policy; rather, it represents the underlying logic that connects economic interests, security objectives, geopolitical ambitions, and the use of proxy networks in the UAE’s regional and extra-regional engagements. The UAE’s conduct can be characterized as sub-imperialist because it relies on sub-imperialist mechanisms in seeking to address challenges of capital accumulation, enhance its position within the global power hierarchy, mitigate geopolitical constraints, and project influence at relatively low cost. The following presents a structured conceptual model that links the UAE’s sub-imperialism to the four aforementioned dimensions.

The UAE’s sub-imperialism can be conceptualized as the central logic underlying the country’s foreign policy toward Africa. This logic operates through three interrelated logics and one key mechanism. First, the economy-first logic provides the material foundation for and facilitates external capital accumulation. Second, the logic of geopolitical constraints explains the security dimension of the UAE engagement and the need to establish strategic depth in its surrounding African environments. Third, the logic of global ambition captures the status dimension of the UAE’s foreign policy and reflects the aspiration to enhance the country’s position within the international hierarchy of power. Fourth, the proxy mechanism serves as an operational instrument for exercising influence in a flexible and relatively low-cost manner.
Taken together, these components contribute to the expansion and consolidation of the UAE’s economic and security influence across Africa and constitute a coherent model of sub-imperialism.The first component, the economy-first logic, explains why the UAE seeks to expand its economic and logistical influence across Africa. The second logic (i.e., geopolitical constraints) highlights why Africa represents not merely an economic market for the UAE but also a strategic security buffer. The logic of global ambitions explains the UAE’s efforts to project influence beyond what might be expected from its material capabilities and to enhance its position within the international system. The fourth component (i.e., the pursuit of expanding influence through regional proxy-building) illustrates how the UAE operationalizes and projects its influence through flexible networks of proxy forces.
Conclusion
The findings suggested that the UAE’s model of external influence in Africa can be meaningfully understood through the concept of sub-imperialism—a concept that refers to the behavior of middle powers within the international system as they seek to project their economic, security, and political capabilities into surrounding environments. The analysis of four components (i.e., economic centrality, global ambitions, the management of geopolitical constraints, and the instrumental use of proxy networks) demonstrated that this pattern of behavior is not simply the result of favorable external conditions, but rather emerges from the interaction between structural drivers and deliberate strategic choices. Accordingly, the UAE’s model departs from the conventional logic associated with middle powers and instead reflects a form of expanded regional activism aimed at enhancing strategic depth beyond its immediate geographic surroundings.
At the theoretical level, integrating these four mechanisms into a coherent analytical model helps clarify the internal dynamics of sub-imperialism as a conceptual framework. More specifically, it demonstrates how the logics of economic accumulation, security imperatives, the pursuit of international status, and the use of proxies can interact within a unified strategic framework. The model may also contribute to explaining the behavior of other middle powers and actors across different regions, thereby providing a foundation for comparative analysis. The main conclusion of this study is that a mechanism-centered and multi-level analytical approach—rather than single-factor explanations—offers greater explanatory power for understanding the transregional influence strategies of small and middle powers and provides promising avenues for future research.