Opinion New QUAD Begins to Take Shape in the Middle East (US, India, Israel & UAE)

An Indo-Abrahamic alliance on the rise: How India, Israel, and the UAE are creating a new transregional order​

There is a new and little noticed geostrategic alliance on the rise. India, Israel, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have had surface-level, transactional relations for a long time. However, last year’s normalization agreements between Israel and several Arab states — chief among them, the UAE — along with Turkey's bid to return as the leader of a Muslim order and the growing distance between the UAE and Pakistan have created an unlikely and unprecedented “Indo-Abrahamic“ transregional order. This emerging multilateral pact may fill the gap the United States is leaving in the Middle East and has the potential to transform the region's geopolitics and geoeconomics.


It used to be about history and religion


In the global order that followed World War II, India, Israel, and the UAE were each stuck in a very complicated course of relations because of history and religion — two fundamental and foundational principles for the three centers of power.


In the middle of the last century, as a result of the partition of British India and the creation of Pakistan, India sought to appeal to Muslim nations. New Delhi supported the Palestinian right to self-determination and sided with the Arab nations in their conflict with Israel. India had strong relations with Egypt under President Gamal Abdel Nasser because of the two countries’ shared struggle against British occupation, the history of their nations, and the involvement of their leaders, President Nasser and Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, at the forefront of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM).


However, in response to the pan-Arabism championed by Nasser’s Egypt and the Cairo-based League of Arab States, Saudi Arabia established the Jeddah-based Organization of the Islamic Conference (now the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, OIC) to assert Saudi — and by extension, the Gulf countries’ — leadership of Muslim causes around the world, including the long-standing dispute between India and Pakistan over Jammu and Kashmir.


For several decades, the UAE and Pakistan maintained a very close and strong partnership. The UAE hosts a sizable Pakistani diaspora that sends substantial remittances back to Pakistan, in addition to providing financial aid and loans. In return for its largesse, the UAE had strategic relations with the Muslim world’s sole nuclear power, and received critical security and military support and training from Pakistan.


For its part, Israel had limited ability to make inroads with NAM members, including India and many other African, Asian, and Latin American countries, because of the Palestinian cause, the broader conflict with the Arab states, and anti-Americanism in the developing world.


The end of the Cold War and the dawn of an era of transactional relations


Following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, Israel succeeded in establishing diplomatic relations with India in 1992 and forged informal ties with many Gulf nations in the 1990s. Over the following two decades, transactional relations between India, Israel, and the UAE slowly grew. India wanted access to the UAE labor market and oil and the UAE recognized India’s status as an emerging global power. In an era of great power competition, New Delhi was central to Abu Dhabi’s ambitions for strategic autonomy. On another front, Israel wanted to make inroads with its neighbors in the region and the UAE saw it as a key channel to Washington. Despite India’s condemnation of Israeli actions in the West Bank and Gaza, the two countries shared mutual security and strategic concerns.


More than a normalization agreement — an alliance


The shared anxieties in Tel Aviv and Abu Dhabi — from Islamist movements to Tehran’s and Ankara's expansionist foreign policy — created an incentive to push forward with an unpreceded move: an agreement to normalize relations between Israel and two Gulf states. The Trump administration sponsored the so-called Abraham Accords between Israel, Bahrain, and the UAE, building on decades of informal relations as well as a more recent geostrategic rapprochement. Saudi Arabia, the traditional Gulf hegemon, signaled its "silent" approval of the agreements.


Since the signing of the Abraham Accords, Israeli and Emirati leaders have pledged further defense cooperation, including Israeli support for the U.S. sale of F-35 planes to the UAE. Furthermore, trade between Israel and the UAE has significantly increased and more than 200,000 Israelis have visited the UAE in this short period. One notable announcement has been the UAE’s $3 billion Abraham Fund, which focuses on investing in priority areas for cooperation like trade, technology, infrastructure, and energy. Finally, Abu Dhabi and Tel Aviv are working together on building a new digital regional order, one in which the two states will partner more closely than ever in developing emerging technologies and cyber capabilities.


Despite the deteriorating situation in Gaza, the eviction of Palestinians in East Jerusalem, and the transition from Benjamin Netanyahu to the Naftali Bennett-Yair Lapid coalition, the UAE has made it very clear that the Abraham Accords are a strategic and sovereign choice that is independent from the Palestinian/Israeli situation and the nature of government in Israel itself. In fact, shortly after the formation of the Bennett-Lapid coalition, Foreign Minister Lapid paid a historic two-day visit to the UAE. Lapid opened an Israeli embassy in Abu Dhabi and a consulate in Dubai, making the UAE the first Gulf state visited by an Israeli cabinet minister since the Accords.


The normalization agreements between Israel and Arab nations — the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco — are not a cold peace like the U.S.-sponsored deals with Cairo in 1979 and Amman in 1994. They go beyond the Palestinian question and its centrality to Arab-Israel relations since the 1940s and focus more on shared security concerns about Ankara and Tehran and their encirclement of Israel and the UAE, and the Gulf states more broadly.


Pakistan’s alignment with a Turkey-led Muslim order


The alignment between Israel and the UAE in the eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East was happening in parallel with other major changes in regional dynamics, including growing relations between the Gulf and Narendra Modi’s India and re-alignment between Pakistan and Turkey. The geostrategic competition between Turkey on one side and the UAE and Israel on the other was not confined to the Middle East, North Africa, and the eastern Mediterranean. It expanded to the rest of the Muslim world, of which Ankara presents itself as the leader in an effort to displace Saudi Arabia. In December 2019, Malaysia's then-Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad invited Muslim leaders, clerics, and thinkers from 52 countries, including Turkey, Qatar, and Iran, to a summit in Kuala Lumpur to discuss the challenges facing the Muslim world. In the Gulf the Kuala Lumpur Summit was broadly viewed as a Turkey-led effort to undermine the Saudi/Gulf leadership of the Muslim world and the decades-old tradition of discussing Muslim affairs under the umbrella of the Jeddah-based OIC. Riyadh and Abu Dhabi compelled Pakistan and its prime minister, Imran Khan, not to attend the summit and to avoid a photo-op with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, both of whom are rivals of Saudi Arabia and the UAE.


Even though Pakistan eventually pulled out of the summit, there has been a growing rift between Islamabad and its Gulf allies, especially over the Kashmiri and Palestinian questions. Pakistan's foreign minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, pushed Saudi Arabia to show leadership on the Kashmir issue in response to Riyadh's reluctance to back Pakistan's call for an OIC foreign ministers' meeting. Qureshi said, "It's right. I'm taking a position despite our good ties with Saudi Arabia." And Kashmir is not the only issue of contention between the Gulf and Pakistan. Although he did not explicitly criticize the UAE's normalization with Israel, Prime Minister Khan stressed that Pakistan would not recognize Israel. He said if Pakistan recognized Israel at the expense of Palestinian rights, "we will have to give up Kashmir as well then." The relationship between Abu Dhabi and Islamabad subsequently hit rock bottom, with the UAE imposing restrictions on Pakistani expatriates.


Islamabad has also drifted away from Riyadh and Abu Dhabi because of its broader realignment with Ankara. The most significant sign of a geostrategic alliance between Turkey and Pakistan is Ankara's negotiations with the United States and NATO over a potential Turkish role in operating and securing Kabul's international airport following the U.S. military withdrawal. The success of Ankara's ambitious mission in Kabul is tied to Islamabad's support and cooperation, given Pakistan's influence in Afghanistan, which could ease the Taliban's opposition to the plan. Although Pakistan has reassured the Gulf countries that its support of a Turkish-led Muslim order is no concern, strategic cooperation between Islamabad and Ankara in Afghanistan will likely exacerbate the UAE’s distrust. The political rift between Islamabad and Abu Dhabi may have grown large enough to surpass their past friendship.


Modi vs. Erdoğan


India and Turkey have had cold and distrustful relations since the establishment of bilateral ties in 1949. During the Cold War, New Delhi and Ankara were at odds geopolitically, as India was a leader of the NAM leaning toward the Soviet camp while Turkey guarded the Eastern gate against the Soviet Union. After the Cold War, there was a genuine effort to break the ice between New Delhi and Ankara, which resulted in a substantial increase in bilateral trade and investment and mutual high-level visits by leaders of both countries. However, growing economic ties could not bridge the gap between Indian and Turkish strategic interests or overcome the rise of their two polar opposite ideological leaders, Prime Minister Modi and President Erdoğan.


Turkish President Erdoğan's brand as a champion of a global political Islam collides with Indian Prime Minister Modi's Hindu nationalism and emboldens India’s rivals. Unsurprisingly, Turkey has intensified its support for Pakistan on the Kashmir issue since Erdoğan’s rise to power. During the 2019 U.N. General Assembly, Erdoğan criticized India for revoking the autonomy of Jammu and Kashmir. In return, Modi canceled a scheduled trip to Turkey. Furthermore, beyond just the Kashmir issue, Pakistan also looks to Turkey as a reliable security partner and arms supplier, especially after Turkish intervention in Libya and Azerbaijan and the rise of Turkish drones. Turkey also supports Pakistan's membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group and previously opposed India's membership in the organization at Pakistan’s request. In response to this growing threat, New Delhi has looked to the eastern Mediterranean and Arab Gulf to counter Turkish influence through cooperation with its main opponents, Greece and the UAE. In the eastern Mediterranean, India supports Greece’s position against Turkey’s gunboat diplomacy. New Delhi and Athens have also intensified military coordination and cooperation. Earlier in July, Greece and India conducted a naval exercise in the eastern Mediterranean — as a show of solidarity with Greece in its struggle with Turkey’s maritime ambitions.


Simply put, the more Ankara and Islamabad expand their strategic partnership, the more Turkey becomes India’s geopolitical rival rather than an economic partner


India between Israel and the Gulf


At the close of the Cold War, New Delhi pursued bilateral relations with Tel Aviv, yet remained careful not to sabotage its ties with the Arab states. More recently, the personal affection between Modi and then-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu transformed the Israel-India relationship into an alliance. Modi and Netanyahu held common interests and similar worldviews, including a mutual desire to create respective ethnonationalist states and counter Islamist movements and powers. Israel is the second largest arms supplier to India and provides cybersecurity solutions to secure its critical infrastructure. Israel also trains Indian special forces on counter-terrorism. In Kashmir, Israel trains Indian police officers and equips security forces with surveillance technology and foliage-penetrating radar. India's consul general in New York, Sandeep Chakravorty, summed up the bilateral security relationship when he called for the replication of the "Israel model" in Kashmir. Today, despite the departure of Netanyahu, the New Delhi-Tel Aviv relationship has become institutional enough to weather the storm of political change in either country.


India and Israel’s alliance coincided with a stronger relationship between India and the Gulf. New Delhi and Abu Dhabi began to align more on geopolitical affairs beyond the conventional three pillars of their relationship: oil, remittances, and the diaspora. The UAE courted India into its camp as Pakistan drew closer to Turkey. The new strategic alignment between New Delhi and Abu Dhabi centers around countering Islamist extremism, defending state sovereignty, and pushing back against the growing influence of the Turkey-led Muslim order. The Gulf countries’ economic leverage over Pakistan make them especially appealing to India, as the UAE has used it to contain Islamabad and even mediate between India and Pakistan to reduce political tensions. In February 2021, the UAE succeeded in facilitating a joint agreement between India and Pakistan to uphold the 2003 cease-fire agreement across the Line of Control — an unprecedented diplomatic success for Abu Dhabi that aims at solidifying relations with India without antagonizing Pakistan.


From diplomacy to military affairs, New Delhi and Abu Dhabi have cultivated a deep and strategic alignment — the UAE even invited India to the OIC foreign ministers’ meeting in Abu Dhabi for the first time in 2019. That same year the UAE also granted Modi the “Order of Zayed,” the highest civilian award in the Emirates, despite the international outcry over his government’s crackdown in Kashmir. Last December, for the first time ever, India’s army chief, Gen. M.M. Naravane, visited Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The visit underscored efforts to transform the trilateral relationship into security arrangements that include joint military exercises and security and intelligence partnerships. Building on Naravane’s visit to the Gulf, in March 2021, India participated in a UAE-hosted air exercise alongside the air forces of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United States, France, and South Korea, while Greece, Jordan, Kuwait, and Egypt observed. And given the unprecedented cooperation between Abu Dhabi and Tel Aviv, Israel is not far from joining this annual multinational military exercise.


What’s next for the Indo-Abrahamic alliance?


The size, power, and influence of the Indo-Abrahamic states — India, Israel, and the UAE — have the potential to transform the region's geopolitics and geoeconomics. The multilateral dynamics have been taking shape over the past few years, but accelerated rapidly in 2020 with the Abraham Accords normalization agreements, Turkey’s pursuit of a more aggressive foreign policy, and the growing distance between Pakistan and the UAE. Although the three powers still have not embraced the grouping as a formal geopolitical bloc, an Indo-Abrahamic strategic dialogue is a close possibility. For instance, Greece has called for establishing a trilateral dialogue with India and the UAE, and it seems likely that this could be expanded to include Israel in the future given its integral role in Greece’s posture in the eastern Mediterranean. While geopolitics may be the primary reason for such an unprecedented transregional pact, the geoeconomic aspect should not be underestimated either.


Another critical challenge for the Indo-Abrahamic alliance is where Saudi Arabia — the heartland of Islam and the biggest Arab economy — stands in relation to the emerging geopolitical bloc. Riyadh has nurtured good relations with Tel Aviv and New Delhi and may look to this grouping as a strategic opportunity in the long run.


The rise of the Indo-Abrahamic bloc in West Asia could provide Washington with a geostrategic solution to the pressing challenge of the U.S. presence in the region and how to do more with less, while connecting the bloc with the new U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy and shoring up an Asian order.
www.mei.edu

An Indo-Abrahamic alliance on the rise: How India, Israel, and the UAE are creating a new transregional order

There is a new and little noticed geostrategic alliance on the rise. India, Israel, and the UAE have had surface-level, transactional relations for a long time. However, last year’s normalization agreements between Israel and several Arab states — chief among them, the UAE — along with Turkey's...
www.mei.edu www.mei.edu
 
Bridging Free and Open Spaces Serves U.S. Interests
Active diplomacy, encouraging foreign direct investment, security cooperation on key strategic projects, and building stronger bridges can do more than raw military force.

American interests are advanced by bridging the world’s free and open spaces, thereby preventing authoritarian regimes from dividing the world into hard spheres of control. In the face of a bellicose China, a destabilizing Iran, and a marauding Russia, American interests call for holding firm on free and open Indo-Pacific and transatlantic communities, normalizing relations between Israel and the Arab nations; and using these partnerships to connect with free and open spaces throughout the greater Atlantic region, the Mediterranean, and North and East Africa.

This can best be achieved, not with military force or blank checks of foreign aid, but with active diplomacy, encouraging foreign direct investment and security cooperation on key strategic projects, and building stronger bridges between the transatlantic community, Eurasia, and the Indo-Pacific. Energy, digital, and transportation ties should be the focus of that bridge-building.

This initiative can start with existing initiatives that are already focused on preserving free and open spaces.
From the East

The Quad. In the Indo-Pacific, the Quad—India, Japan, Australia, and the United States—provides an overarching mechanism for promoting a free and open Pacific. This partnership has already borne fruit, including better coordination for engaging Pacific Island nations and constructively engaging in development in the Indian Ocean region.

The Quad Plus. This second set of relationships allows other partners to flow in and partner where it makes sense on common projects and initiatives, including Taiwan, Vietnam, South Korea, Singapore, the Philippines, and others. One example is the joint cooperation of Indo-Pacific nations in responding to the COVID pandemic.

The Middle Corridor. This initiative is establishing a corridor linking Central Asian nations (like Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan) and Caucuses nations (such as Azerbaijan and Georgia) to the West. This project can produce resilient, additive supply chains, energy and material resources, and digital connectivity, initiatives developed by the nations themselves outside the oppressive influence of China, Iran, and Russia.

The Abraham Accords. Normalizing relations between Israel and Arab nations creates opportunities for security, diplomatic, and economic cooperation that will serve as a firebreak against Iran and create a secure, prosperous region that contributes to stability in North and East Africa and safeguards the crucial links between the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean.

From the West
The Three Seas Initiative. Europe lacks effective North-South integration that incorporates Central Europe. The Three Seas Initiative (3SI) is a project of commercial investments in infrastructure, digital connectivity, and energy that will establish the missing North-South corridor.

Ukraine Reconstruction. The 3SI has now added Ukraine as a partner nation. The United States has a strategic interest in seeing Ukraine become a successful economic barrier to Russian aggression and fully integrated with the West. 3SI could be an instrument to speed up this effort.

Mediterranean and Black Seas. Efforts to ensure a free and open Eastern Mediterranean span from Southern Europe to North Africa. In particular, Southern Europe is a hub for bringing energy from the Caucuses, North Africa, the Middle East, and the United States. Further, the north-south backbone of the new European economy stands on the foundation of access to the Black Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean. This access links all of Europe to the Middle East and North Africa, and the linkage then continues across the Atlantic to the United States and Canada. Thus, the United States has an interest in a free and open Black Sea, with nations having the capacity to protect their commercial air and maritime traffic. Italy, Israel, Greece, and Romania all also have important roles to play in ensuring a free and open Black Sea linked to the East Mediterranean.

Linking East and West
U.S. policies ought to adopt as an aim, not just supporting these initiatives, but promoting actions and architecture linking them. Enhancing connectivity between free and open spaces adds more value to each region. It also creates more resilient, secure, and diverse supply chains and more opportunities for commerce.

In addition, linked spaces dramatically add to global stability. They decrease opportunities for destabilizing powers to dominate and disrupt the global commons, create strategic choke points, or control critical sources of energy, materials, supply chains, and manufacturing capacity. Free and open connectivity is an alternative to regional competition with security coming from the stand-off of hardened alliances. Rather, free and open common bonds delivering shared prosperity provide breathing space for nations to determine their own future outside the weight of great power competition.

How to Bridge Open Spaces
It is time to think creatively about how to add momentum to the ongoing initiatives mentioned above. But it’s also time to think of launching new initiatives that can deliver new synergies. Here are some ideas.

Encourage new partnerships. To meet the China challenge over the long term, we will need not just regional allies, but nations beyond the region to work with us on a global scale. To this end, we must establish enduring partnerships that transcend security cooperation and span the economic, political, and cultural spheres. South Korea is one example of where America must broaden engagement. India is another. The United States must also encourage bilateral relations among critical interregional nations such as India and Italy.

The United States should also encourage broadening regional partnerships such as strengthening digital and physical connectivity along the north-south axis on Europe’s eastern flank. This can be done by strongly backing 3SI, improving connectivity among the nations along the Baltic, Black, and Adriatic Seas. Further, an energetic 3SI will facilitate American and European outreach across the Caucuses and Caspian Sea to the republics of Central Asia. Italy and Greece ought to consider joining or partnering with the 3SI, cementing the linkage between north-south integration and Southern Europe.

Link Strategic Regions. Bridging free and open spaces ought to include reaffirming collective actions with close allies. For example, the United States should foster linking the Indo-Pacific through ASEAN and the Eastern Mediterranean. While ASEAN relies on the United States for its security (with the United States serving as the indispensable guarantor of freedom of navigation), China predominates the region’s economic and trade interests. In short, an American security blanket subsidizes Chinese commercial relations with ASEAN. This is a prescription for friction and conflict, not cooperation. What is needed is substantially more market integration of ASEAN, the Quad economies, the Middle East, and Europe. Free and open bonding could help speed up that process. One example is the newly announced digital cable from India to Italy, which could benefit all ASEAN economies.

Another important conceptual link is bonding the Indo-Pacific with the Atlantic Region through the region the Eastern Mediterranean. Both the Indo-Pacific and the Atlantic region share a common concern: China’s destabilizing efforts to expand its hegemony at the expense of others. Empowering like-minded actions on issues such as illegal fishing sends a strong, united message against China’s exploitive behavior.

It is also time for new framework that links the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia through a new regional grouping of I2U2—India, Israel, UAE, and the United States. This grouping could elevate the Abraham Accords to a strategic bridge between the free and open Indo-Pacific and the Mediterranean. Italy has already moved in this direction, fostering closer economic and commercial ties between the eastern Mediterranean and the Arabian Seas and signing an India-Italy strategic partnership.

New Opportunities for Africa. Extending the linkage of free and open spaces into North and East Africa could help expand prosperity and counter violent extremism and the malicious influences of China and Russia. Optimizing east-west links between the Arabian and Mediterranean seas will, for example, create new opportunities for East African economies. The United States could accelerate cooperation by promoting regional African summits, alternately hosted by the Quad and European nations.

Expand the G7. The G7 needs to be updated to include the leading free and open democracies and economies of both the Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific. The next two G7 host nations—Japan and Italy—should work to transition from G7 to G10, adding India, Australia, and South Korea.

All the nations committed to free and open spaces share the desire to attain energy security, counter violent extremism and illegal mass migration, deter wars of aggression, foster growing, vibrant economies, and mitigate the debilitating instability of great power rivalries. This is also good for America. We need strong U.S. leadership promoting loose, flexible, and evolving groupings of like-minded nations committed to free and open spaces powered by self- and collective interests.
nationalinterest.org

Bridging Free and Open Spaces Serves U.S. Interests

Active diplomacy, encouraging foreign direct investment, security cooperation on key strategic projects, and building stronger bridges can do more than raw military force.
nationalinterest.org nationalinterest.org
 
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