The latest
For decades, Gulf states were best known as major customers of Western arms makers. Oil wealth paid for fighter jets, frigates and advanced air-defense systems. Local production remained limited.
That is starting to change.
The war with Iran has sharpened a push already under way across the Gulf: buying protection is no longer enough. Gulf states increasingly want to build part of it themselves.
The UAE is moving faster than most. EDGE Group, created in 2019 by merging about 25 Emirati defense firms, has become the region’s most serious defense-industrial player.
Details
• The Economist said Emirati defense products helped intercept about 80% of Iranian Shahed drones.
• EDGE’s revenue passed $5 billion last year, with an order backlog of more than $20 billion.
• Its chief executive, Hamad Al Marar, expects revenue to rise by about 20% over the next two years as the company works through those orders.
• EDGE is already among the world’s three largest producers of precision-guided munitions.
• The company is not trying to localize everything. It is focusing on critical systems and components where supply chains may prove fragile.
• EDGE has expanded through stakes and partnerships with foreign firms, including Leonardo, Fincantieri, Rheinmetall and Anduril.
• The group exports about three-quarters of its output to markets in Latin America, Africa and Asia.
• The UAE’s share of global arms imports fell to 2.7% in 2021-2025, down from 3.5% in 2016-2020, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
• In the Gulf, EDGE has signed a joint venture with Qatar’s Barzan Holdings and licensed vehicle technology to Saudi Arabia’s SAMI.
What to watch
The war has given EDGE a field record, not just a sales pitch. If the UAE can turn that performance into exports, contracts and locally owned technology, it could become the first Gulf state to build a defense industry that competes abroad, not only one that reduces dependence on the West.
