The United Arab Emirates exist because of a reaction to Britain’s loss of power, post-Word War II. That power, in turn, came about because of geography, rather than outright politics. It’s strange to think a modern country exists because of a random geographical feature.

This article explains the whole story.

Britain was the major maritime power in the 19th century. Its dominions in the East provided trade, and everyone tried to improve those trade links. Technological improvements led to more precise maps, which led to the idea of the Suez Canal. This man-made canal from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea shortened the London to Mumbai route by 8 900 kilometres¹. There was a lot of money riding on this canal. Over 20 years from 1846, trade with the East increased from GBP 500 000 to over GBP 5 000 000². That’s about GBP 500 000 000 in today’s money².

And that’s before the Suez canal was ready.

The main engineer behind the Suez Canal was Alois Negrelli, for whom the Negrelli viaduct in Prague is named.

This increase in trade attracted piracy, particularly in the Persian Gulf. Britain felt it had to do something to protect its interests, but what could it do?

The Rise of Piracy

The main pirate tribe in the Persian Gulf at the time was the Al Qasimi tribe. Since the beginning of the 19th century, they’d been planning raids on British shipping. In a 5-year period from 1804, they captured 30 British vessels including HMS Shannon and merchant ship Trimmer³. The pirates either killed the crew, or sold them into slavery. They then converted the ships into heavily armed corsairs which they used to patrol and dominate the region with.

In 1805, a daring attack by 50 dhows took down the East India Company warship Mornington³. By 1809, they had inflicted losses of GBP 200 000, which is around GBP 18 000 000 in today’s money⁴. The human toll was horrific, with as many as 300 sailors enslaved from a single raid.

For the success of the Suez venture, Britain felt it had to contain this threat. There was more to it than meets the eye though. Al Qasimi had an alliance with Wahhabi forces in the area, and diplomatic relations with France⁴. They ended up being a proxy resistance against British hegemony.

What could a major naval power like Britain do in the face of all this geopolitics?

British anti piracy campaigns

The British reacted to all this by combining military force with diplomatic channels. In 1809, Captain John Wainwright led the Persian Gulf campaign⁵. He destroyed 80 Al Qasimi vessels, including their flagship Minerva, and razed their home port of Ras Al Khaimah. Piracy continued, so a second expedition in 1819 included 3 000 troops^{5 6} and a naval squadron⁵ . Faced with this, Al Qasimi signed a General Maritime Treaty^{4 5 7} the year after. The treaty outlawed piracy and gave the British oversight of Gulf navigation. It took another 33 years before they signed the 1853 Perpetual Maritime Truce^{4 5 8}. The “Pirate Coast” became a British protectorate, known as the Trucial states⁵. It wasn’t seen as surrendering to the British because it did provide advantages^{4 8}:

1. The British secured their trade route to India, which was their first intent. (And also the trade route from India to Europe)
2. More importantly, they pre-empted any French or Ottoman influence in the region which let the British control the ports and services offered. Coaling stations for steamers sprung up along the coast⁶. By 1900, 70% of all Gulf trade passed through British-controlled ports like Bahrain and Kuwait.
3. The sheikhdoms benefited from guaranteed defence which helped them focus their attention elsewhere. It also reduced inter-tribal warfare down to zero which made everyone’s lives much safer.
4. Local Gulf economies also found themselves plugged into the global market because they could leverage trade heading to both Europe and the East. Revenues from pearling grew year-on-year by GBP 1 000 000 which is an astonishing amount for those days⁸.

There was more but perhaps the most influential change was the political agent system which embedded British advisors into local courts⁸. While this let the British ensure compliance with anti-slavery and anti-piracy laws, it meant the British had maximum influence with minimal administrative costs. The British replicated this model in other places, like Malaya and Nigeria.

This situation persisted until 1956⁴.

The Effects of Suez

In the second half of the 20th century, the British Empire was in decline. The Suez crisis showed how it now relied on financial support and diplomacy from the USA. In 1968, the British decided to withdraw “east of Suez” by 1971⁴. This meant the region had to rethink itself because it could no longer rely on the way things were.

This worried the Trucial Sheikhdoms, especially Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, Abu Dhabi’s ruler. He declared that if the British left it would leave the Gulf “like a child without its mother.” Oil companies were also worried. The region hadn’t been exploited as much as it could have, but Abu Dhabi’s production rose to 690 000 barrels per day in 1966. This provided much-needed finance for infrastructural projects, but it also attracted Iranian and Saudi territorial claims. The sheikhs had a simple choice: fragmentation or unity.

They chose unity, which was the most pragmatic choice to this existential threat.

The United Arab Emirates

Sheikh Zayed got together with his counterpart from Dubai, Sheikh Rashid. They both agreed on the need to focus negotiations on three key points:

1. Border disputes. There weren’t that many disputes between the Trucial states themselves. They were worry about what Saudi Arabia and Iran were doing.
2. Tribal rivalries. While the states were at peace with each other, there was suspicion about each other’s motives.
3. Economic imbalances. Abu Dhabi was richer. With 90% of oil reserves, it could outspend and out manoeuvre any other Trucial state.

The result of all these negotiations was a pragmatic and peace-focused solution:

• A federation which would balance centralised defence and foreign policy. Each emirate would maintain autonomy on all other areas.
• The federation would modernise, funded by Abu Dhabi’s oil wealth and Dubai’s free trade zones. Smaller emirates would rely on federal subsidies to ensure balance.

It’s interesting they agreed this, putting the greater good above other concerns. Their peaceful 100+ year history showed they could live together, so being a British protectorate was a long-term benefit. Without that, they may have continued warring with each other and never been in a position to form such a federation.

This doesn’t mean there was consensus around the table. The Trucial states included Qatar and Bahrain but these two sheikhs weren’t convinced this federal stuff would work for them. They didn’t join and became independent in their own right instead.

I’m also not focusing on a number of other factors like the dominance of trade with/from India, the influence of the Ottoman Empire and then the Germans, the evolution of overland trade routes from the Mediterranean to Baghdad and then down to Kuwait and so on. These are important but the points covered in this article provide the higher-level view. Consult the reading list below to learn more about these things.

Independence and economic growth

Their growth since independence is an economic blueprint for success. The table below shows the increase in GDP in 10-year intervals. Figures are in billions of dollars.

Emirate	1975	1985	1995	2005	2015	2025
Abu Dhabi	2.1	18.6	32.9	103	260	340
Dubai	1.5	11.2	22.4	88	215	310
Sharjah	0.4	3.1	6.2	14	34	48
Ras Al Khaimah	0.2	1.2	2.5	5.3	12	18
Fujairah	0.1	0.6	1.3	2.7	5.6	8.2
Ajman	0.08	0.4	0.8	1.7	3.4	4.8
Umm Al-Quwain	0.05	0.3	0.6	1.2	2.3	3.1

Sources: Historical estimates derived from IMF reports and UAE national accounts⁹.

Of course, Abu Dhabi’s oil reserves powered much of this, but Dubai’s canny diversification into tourism and finance has also been a major contributor^{10 11}. Federal transfers have supported the smaller emirates and there’s nothing stopping them from achieving similar growth if they leverage their advantages as well. In 2025, 70% of the economy will come from non-oil sectors which shows they don’t rely on oil for their wealth.

Conclusion

The UAE’s origins is based on the intricate web of 19th-century piracy, British imperial strategy, and 20th-century decolonization. It’s unusual but a great success story for any like-minded countries or regions prepared to adapt to leverage their joint strengths.

References

1. Ghaddar, A. (2023). How Houthi attacks in the Red Sea impact shipping in the Suez Canal. [online] Reuters. Available at: https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/how-are-red-sea-attacks-impacting-shipping-suez-canal-2023-12-18/[↩]
2. Serim (2014). Economy in Turmoil: Gulf Trade Hit by Piracy and Famine | Qatar Digital Library. [online] Www.qdl.qa. Available at: https://www.qdl.qa/en/economy-turmoil-gulf-trade-hit-piracy-and-famine [Accessed 21 May 2025][↩][↩]
3. Woodman, R. (2004). The Victory of Seapower[↩][↩]
4. Britain and the Gulf: At the Periphery of Empire. (n.d.). Available at: http://jepeterson.net/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/Britain_and_the_Persian_Gulf.pdf[↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩]
5. Bose, A. (2013). Historical Perspectives on Piracy: The British Empire in the Persian Gulf – Gateway House. [online] Gateway House. Available at: https://www.gatewayhouse.in/historical-perspectives-on-piracy-the-british-empire-in-the-persian-gulf/[↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩]
6. Morton, M.Q. (2013). The British India Line in the Arabian Gulf, 1862-1982 (2013). [online] Liwa Journal, Vol. 5, Issue 10. Available at: https://www.academia.edu/5670817/The_British_India_Line_in_the_Arabian_Gulf_1862_1982_2013_ [Accessed 22 May 2025][↩][↩]
7. Onley, J. (2009). Britain and the Gulf Shaikhdoms, 1820-1971: The Politics of Protection. SSRN Electronic Journal, 4. doi:https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2825942[↩]
8. Al-Maani, A.A.-R. and Alsharari, S. (2013). Pearl Trade in the Persian Gulf during the 19th Century. Asian Culture and History, 6(1). doi:https://doi.org/10.5539/ach.v6n1p43[↩][↩][↩][↩]
9. World Bank (2024). GDP (current US$) – United Arab Emirates | Data. [online] Worldbank.org. Available at: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?locations=AE[↩]
10. gulftoday (2023). IMF praises UAE’s economic and financial developments. [online] gulftoday. Available at: https://www.gulftoday.ae/business/2023/10/13/imf-praises-uaes-economic-and-financial-developments [Accessed 22 May 2025][↩]
11. IMF. (n.d.). IMF Executive Board Concludes 2022 Article IV Consultation with United Arab Emirates. [online] Available at: https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2023/06/22/pr23234-uae-imf-executive-board-concludes-2022-article-iv-consultation-with-united-arab-emirates[↩]

Remember: links were correct at time of publication.

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