Date: Wednesday 11 March | Location: Online Webinar | Time: 14:00 – 15:00 (UTC)

While the US continues to adopt an increasingly threatening military posture towards Iran, a different question altogether appears to be preoccupying political and business leaders in the gulf…

As tensions between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have heightened in recent months, the consequences for both governments and businesses in the region and beyond are significant and manifold. Whilst recent events in Hadhramaut have brought matters to the fore, the question of Yemen represents just one of a wide number of arenas in which the two countries are locked in an increasingly bitter competition – from internal GCC power dynamics, to the war in Sudan and the control of strategic supply chains across the continent of Africa, with potentially major implications for the critical minerals sector.

This webinar will look at the various roots of the current rift between Saudi and the UAE, in order to help understand why things stand as they do. It will reflect on the sprawling set of domains in which the two countries – overtly or otherwise – find themselves in competition, and will consider how the dispute is likely to develop and manifest, along with implications for the region (and those doing business within it).

The webinar will cover:

• The background to the Saudi-UAE dispute
• Strategic and narrative drivers
• Domestic economic and regulatory competition
• Military and diplomatic competition in Sudan, Yemen and elsewhere
• The two countries’ critical minerals strategies
• Implications for governments and businesses in the region and beyond

Speaker

Samuel Ramani is an Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) think tank in London and the CEO of Pangea Geopolitical Risk. Before joining RUSI and establishing PGR, Samuel received his DPhil in International Relations at St. Antony's College, University of Oxford in 2021. Samuel is the author of Russia in Africa: Resurgent Great Power or Bellicose Pretender and Putin's War on Ukraine: Russia's Campaign for Global Counter-Revolution, which were published by Oxford University Press and Hurst in 2023. Samuel frequently advises the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, US Department of State, US Department of Defence, and NATO on defence and security issues, and is a regular contributor to the BBC World Service, Al Jazeera, CNN International, and Foreign Policy magazine.