The UAE, the world’s third-largest oil exporter, along with Qatar, the world’s top liquefied natural gas exporter, are seen as the Gulf states least vulnerable to the political unrest.
The UAE’s local population of around 15 percent of its total estimated five million is dwarfed by a larger number of expatriates in the seven-emirate federation, which has one of the world’s highest gross domestic products per capita at over $47,000.
Were there to be discontent in the UAE, analysts say it likely would appear in less developed emirates whose citizens have benefited less from the capital Abu Dhabi’s vast oil wealth or trade and property-fuelled development in Dubai.
NPR reports that workers “typically live eight to a room, sending home a portion of their salary to their families, whom they don’t see for years at a time.” The BBC has reported that “local newspapers often carry stories of construction workers allegedly not being paid for months on end. They are not allowed to move jobs and if they leave the country to go home they will almost certainly lose the money they say they are owed.”[1] Additionally, most of the workers are forced to give up their passports upon entering Dubai, making it very difficult to return home. In September 2005, the Minister of Labour ordered one company to pay unpaid salaries within 24 hours after workers protested, and published the name of the offending company.[2]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_force_of_the_United_Arab_Emirates
15% of the people are citizens the rest are foreign workers sure the citizens won’t protest they make $47,000 a year but the citizens are out numbered and a nationwide strike could stop the economy.
War with Iran that could also stop the economy and prevent workers from getting paid for months. That alone could plunge the UAE into civil war.
A Civil War which would likely leave the Arab states with a Non Arab country as the world’s third-largest oil exporter, along with Qatar, and the world’s top liquefied natural gas exporter. With an Iranian American war going on the UAE won’t be able to count on American, Saudi etc troops to come in to restore order.
The UAE has instead decide to trust Blackwater to hold the line.
$529 million contract with the Emirati government to recruit and train a foreign battalion for counterterrorism and internal security missions,
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/16/world/middleeast/16prince.html
It is seriously doubtful just how effective a single battalion could be in stopping a nationwide strike.
Maybe they should read Nicolo Machiavelli
Mercenaries and auxiliaries are useless and dangerous; and if one holds his state based on these arms, he will stand neither firm nor safe; for they are disunited, ambitious and without discipline, unfaithful, valiant before friends, cowardly before enemies; they have neither the fear of God nor fidelity to men, and destruction is deferred only so long as the attack is; for in peace one is robbed by them, and in war by the enemy
http://www.constitution.org/mac/prince12.htm
