The UAE’s defense diversification drive: Multiple suppliers, local manufacturing, and strategic autonomy

The UAE is spending its way to strategic autonomy in defense — and nudging its suppliers to build at home rather than just buy off the shelf on the international market. Abu Dhabi is moving fast to broaden its arsenal regardless of when the US-Iran war ends, opening parallel conversations with India, South Korea, and France even as it stays anchored to US systems.

The common denominator in all of the talks: The UAE wants to own core technologies and build a local manufacturing base — and it has the financial clout to push traditional suppliers to move beyond one-way buyer-seller relationships. That extends from defense hardware (drones, missiles, and air-defense systems) to dual-use technologies, like the homomorphic and other encryption technology that Abu Dhabi-based TII recently sold to US-based Opaque.

India is the clearest test of how hard Abu Dhabi can bargain. New Delhi and Abu Dhabi signed a Strategic Framework for Defense Industrial Collaboration earlier this year, saying they would work together on everything from defense manufacturing to special operations and counterterrorism. They are also said to be in early-stage talks that could see the UAE buy India’s BrahMos supersonic cruise missile and the Akashteer air-defense system. Akashteer would be deployed alongside the UAE’s US-made Thaad and Patriot batteries, while the BrahMos would add a strike option next to Lockheed Martin’s existing ATACMS surface-to-surface missile system.

But the data shows India has a long way to go before the framework becomes tangible. India’s defense exports to the UAE fell by half in FY 2025 to USD 1.3 bn, while imports from the UAE rose more than 71% to a record USD 3.1 bn, according to data from India’s Commerce Ministry. A small handful of big-ticket items made up the bulk of sales: Aircraft and ships accounted for more than 99.8% of two-way defense trade between FY 2022 and FY 2025. Arms and ammunition were just 0.16% of these flows and never topped USD 10.2 mn in annual exports.

“The data does suggest that India-UAE defense trade remains episodic rather than structural,” Lt. Gen. Deependra Hooda, a retired Indian Army commander, tells EnterpriseAM. He wants the partnership judged on outputs, not signing ceremonies: “We have to see how many contracts have been signed, how many joint production facilities have been set up, and how technology sharing is progressing. If these indicators are not visible in the next two years, the agreement would need a serious high-level review.”

The structural fit with India is there on paper: The UAE has capital, India has manpower and the Atmanirbhar Bharat self-reliance push. “There is a natural case for joint R&D,” says Kabir Taneja, executive director at Dubai-based Observer Research Foundation Middle East. Whether that converts depends on New Delhi loosening state control over its defense industry: “Private firms need greater freedom to develop and market technologies,” Taneja argues. (The ORF Middle East is the regional outpost of India’s premier policy think tank.)

Abu Dhabi’s problem with India isn’t options, but delivery. India still lacks the track record to convince Gulf buyers its systems will hold up in modern combat, and its procurement system is slow and opaque, experts tell us. “The frustration is real, well-documented, and shared by virtually every country that has attempted to do defense business with India,” Hooda says, citing R&D gaps, industrial capacity, and delivery timelines. Taneja puts the buyer’s logic plainly: “The UAE is diversifying its defense partnerships and wants systems that are battle-tested and deployable immediately.”

That’s why South Korea may beat India to it. Seoul pairs access to Western technology with fast production cycles and proven operational credibility — the exact mix that the UAE is after, Taneja says. Korean defense firms have made substantial inroads in Egypt and, more recently, Saudi Arabia — and its Hanwha Ocean is aggressively courting a multi-bn USD contract to provide submarines to the Royal Canadian Navy.

This pull is showing up in capital flows. Mubadala is weighing a commitment to a Korea Investment & Securities private-equity fund chasing a 73.78% controlling stake in South Korean defense supplier MNC Solution, Korean finance and business news outlet ChosunBiz reports. It follows a USD 35 bn UAE-Korea defense pact and a USD 65 bn pipeline of joint projects.

Europe is a third option: Edge Group, the UAE’s relatively new state-owned defense champion, has opened a Paris headquarters and signed a cooperation framework with DGA, the weapons-buying arm of France’s armed forces, giving it a government-level route into French procurement. CEO Hamad Al Marar says DGA’s role gives the move “real industrial substance from the outset.” Edge is also planning an engineering and manufacturing facility in Bordeaux and has recently lined up partnerships with Hungary’s 4iG, Italy’s Leonardo, Spain’s EM&E, and France’s Safran.

The common thread: Building domestic manufacturing capacity. Abu Dhabi is building its own defense base through Edge and increasingly demands co-development rather than just supply purchases. Future cooperation will likely require co-development and industrial partnerships — like its pact with Adani Defense & Aerospace — rather than a simple buyer-seller relationship.

Why it matters: A wider supplier base buys the UAE strategic autonomy without antagonizing Washington — it can add Korean, Indian, and European systems around a US core rather than replace it. For UAE’s defense partners, the message is that access to one of the Gulf’s deepest defense buyers (Saudi Arabia still spends substantially more than the UAE) now runs through joint ventures and tech transfer, not export licenses.

Watch this space: Even as it publicly backed away from Chinese tech and AI infrastructure to unlock access to advanced US chips (key to its 1 GW data center partnership OpenAI), the UAE has kept deepening defense ties with Beijing on a parallel track. It has ordered Chinese L-15 trainer jets, long flown China’s Wing Loong II armed drones, and in December hosted PLA J-10 fighters for the third Falcon Shield joint air exercise — a month after the chip approval. Open-source imagery also points to Chinese counter-drone systems turning up at UAE airports.