In this episode of UNAPOLOGETIC, we speak to Dr Andreas Krieg — a leading Gulf security expert — about how the UAE has pursued an aggressive statecraft strategy since 2011.

Andreas unpacks how Abu Dhabi has shaped the region through covert interventions, proxy forces and political engineering. From Egypt to Libya, Yemen to Sudan, we examine how the UAE has empowered secessionist, authoritarian and anti-democratic actors to build a regional order aligned with its own interests and often at the expense of social stability and cohesion, and in the case of Sudan, plausible genocide.

He explains the ideology and strategy driving this approach, why the UAE views political Islam and more representative government as existential threats, and how these policies have fuelled instability across the Middle East. A crucial conversation on power, repression and the region’s future.

Chapters

00:00 Intro

2:00 UAE’s pursuit of dominance

12:00 MBZ’s authoritarian worldview

22:00 Blueprint for counterrevolution

32:00 Engineering Egypt’s repression

42:00 Yemen as a testing ground

52:00 Dividing allies, breaking states

1:02:00 Sudan’s gold-fuelled militias

1:12:00 Moscow, mercenaries, money flows

1:22:00 Washington’s blind partnership

1:32:00 Abu Dhabi’s influence machine

1:42:00 A region remade by fear