A Secret Mercenary Army In The Making For The UAE

Great investigative reporting from Mark Mazzetti and Emily Hager:

[Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater] was hired by the crown prince of Abu Dhabi to put together an 800-member battalion of foreign troops for the U.A.E., according to former employees on the project, American officials and corporate documents obtained by The New York Times.

The force is intended to conduct special operations missions inside and outside the country, defend oil pipelines and skyscrapers from terrorist attacks and put down internal revolts […]. Such troops could be deployed if the Emirates faced unrest or were challenged by pro-democracy demonstrations in its crowded labor camps or democracy protests like those sweeping the Arab world this year.

This is stunning, but it’s not surprising. When you have much more money than people and you feel threatened by your much larger and poorer neighbor, things like this can happen. I wouldn’t be surprised if the rest of the GCC are doing the same (bar Saudi Arabia which has a relatively large population). This also shows that the GCC is giving up on American protection as unreliable (after what happened with Egypt’s Mubarak), and that they’re hedging their bets on defense.