The Trucial States of the Persian Gulf coast granted the UK control of their defense and foreign affairs in 19th-century treaties. In 1971, six of these states -- Abu Dhabi, 'Ajman, Al Fujayrah, Ash Shariqah, Dubayy, and Umm al Qaywayn -- merged to form the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Ra's al Khaymah joined in 1972.

The UAE's per-capita GDP is on par with those of leading West European nations. For more than three decades, oil and global finance drove the UAE's economy. In 2008-09, the confluence of falling oil prices, collapsing real estate prices, and the international banking crisis hit the UAE especially hard. The UAE did not experience the "Arab Spring" unrest seen elsewhere in the Middle East in 2010-11, partly because of the government's multi-year, $1.6-billion infrastructure investment plan for the poorer northern emirates, and its aggressive pursuit of advocates for political reform.

The UAE in recent years has played a growing role in regional affairs. In addition to donating billions of dollars in economic aid to help stabilize Egypt, the UAE was one of the first countries to join the Defeat ISIS coalition, and to participate as a key partner in a Saudi-led military campaign in Yemen. In 2020, the UAE and Bahrain signed a peace agreement (the Abraham Accords) with Israel -- brokered by the US -- in Washington, D.C. The UAE and Bahrain thus became the third and fourth Middle Eastern countries, along with Egypt and Jordan, to recognize Israel.

UAE Space Agency (created in 2014); Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC; established 2006) (2025)

Has an ambitious and growing national space program; focused on satellite development, including communications, remote sensing, and navigational, as well as capabilities (such as probes) for deep space exploration; also placing emphasis on building expertise, infrastructure, ground stations, technology, and research and development capabilities to support its space program domestically; rather than building its own launch capabilities, has elected to utilize foreign partners to launch payloads from spaceports abroad; has looked to invest in foreign commercial space companies and encourage global partnerships; has a foreign-assisted astronaut training program; seeking to establish UAE as an international hub for space education; founding member of the Arab Space Cooperation Group; has signed more than 25 cooperation agreements or memorandums of understanding with major global and regional players in the space sector, including China, Egypt, the European Space Agency, France, Germany, India, Japan, Russia, South Korea, Turkey, the UK, and the US; sees the development of its commercial space industry as a key pillar for diversifying and developing the country’s non-oil economy; in 2022, pledged to spend more than $800 million in the private space sector to grow the country’s capabilities in space over the following 10 years; dozens of space companies and entities operate in the UAE, including international and start-ups, plus several space science research centers (2025)