Dubai: the security dimensions of the region's premier free port.
Middle East Policy › Vol. 15 Nbr. 2, June 2008
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Dubai: the security dimensions of the region's premier free port.
Dubai is a remarkable success story. From its origins as a small fishing and pearling community, the emirate has gone from strength to strength, having established itself as the premier trading entrepot of the Arabian Gulf and, in more recent years, having boomed into a massive metropolis of some two or more million, most of whom are expatriates engaged in an increasingly diversified economy. However, in addition to concerns over the sustainability of Dubai's development model, misgivings among the emirate's national population over the enormous social impact of the forces of globalization, and a reliance on the continuing stability of its closest neighbors in the federation of United Arab Emirates, Dubai's future success is now also endangered by a rise in the level of the internal security threat. Although oil-rich Abu Dhabi has been able to build up the UAE's armed forces and other federal security services by procuring some of the finest military hardware available, the UAE has nevertheless had little option but to remain firmly under a Western military umbrella. This not only undermines Dubai's historical preference for neutrality; it also weakens several components of the traditional monarchy's ruling bargain, not least the Al-Maktum family's need to position itself as a public supporter of Arab and Muslim causes.
Moreover, as an unfortunate, but perhaps inescapable, hidden cost of Dubai's emergence as the region's premier free port, for many years the emirate has also attracted the attention of both criminal and terrorist international organizations, many of which have exploited Dubai's geographic location, laissez-faire attitudes, and impressive infrastructure to set up various smuggling, gunrunning, human-trafficking, money-laundering and terror-funding operations. Certainly, with the exception of delinquent acts performed by thrill-seeking younger members of the national population, most crimes in Dubai are far from petty and are often perpetrated by large cartels. Thus, while it remains relatively safe to walk the city's streets at all times of day and night, massive transit-related crimes are being committed behind the scenes. Most worryingly, despite Dubai's undoubted usefulness to the groups controlling such activities, the emirate has not been able to remain completely in the eye of the storm and has suffered from a number of terrorist attacks on its own soil. Although most of the recent attempts have been foiled, any escalation of such activity will threaten its increasingly foreign-investment dependent economy. The emirate's carefully constructed reputation for stability will decline, and the government will become less able to defend its crucial laissez-faire policies from international criticism. SMUGGLING AND CONTRABAND Since the waves of merchant immigration from Iran and other parts of the Gulf that began in the late nineteenth ...See the full content of this document
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