This recording is from “The Saudi-UAE Rift – A high stakes strategic rivalry?” which was an hour long webinar – including a Q&A session – by Samuel Ramani on 11 March 2026.

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Some of the areas the talk addressed, were:

• 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.