Moving off the gold standard: Energy, security, “Stateness”, and the nuclearisation of the Gulf

Abstract

This article analyses the rationale behind the pursuit of nuclear energy by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia, a rationale that is best understood by a particular construct of “stateness”. While the drive towards nuclear energy is justified by a growing demographic, it is also about the projection of prestige which cuts to the very core of regime legitimacy. This in turn feeds into the growing ideational competition between and among the Gulf states and Iran, with nuclear energy increasingly being “securitised” in pursuit of this “stateless”. However, the development of a nuclear programme by Saudi Arabia in particular has come to test the normative frameworks that have hitherto regulated the transfer of nuclear technologies. With regionalism in retreat, and concern over the longer-term commitment of the United States to underpin Gulf security, the development of nuclear energy in the Gulf is leading to a truly “atomised” security complex, the dynamic of which can likely only be controlled on a bespoke basis.