Friends in Need

As the Iran conflict extends into its third week, EU foreign ministers and then leaders are meeting in Brussels to grapple with their responses to the crisis. US President Donald Trump’s appeal for assistance to help secure the vital Strait of Hormuz shipping lane and his warning that NATO faces a “very bad” future if members fail to assist, will no doubt be at the top of their minds. Other US allies, such as Japan, South Korea, and Australia, will also be weighing how to balance risk, reward, and White House expectations in their next steps.  

To date, no US allies have stepped forward in response to Trump’s request. But the United Kingdom, France, and Australia have already deployed forces to the Gulf, with Italy also committing counter-air, -drone, and -missile systems to support the defense of Gulf countries enduring ongoing Iranian reprisal attacks.   

The United Kingdom, France, and Australia each operate military bases in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and have bilateral defense agreements with Abu Dhabi. But these do not impose mutual security obligations, and France is the only one of the three to have foreshadowed, in 2025, a willingness to provide direct military assistance in response to conflict. 

The calculus for each of the three countries has been similar: All have developed substantial economic links with Gulf partners (especially the UAE) leading to the presence of large expatriate communities, all have major and growing defense export interests in the region, and all have seen an evolution and solidification of direct military relationships in recent decades that reflect these interests and the strategic advantages of military facilities in the region. For the UAE and other Gulf partners, these relationships respond to a desire to diversify strategic partnerships and access high-end military technology, as well as an aspiration ultimately to lock in security commitments.    

While France and the United Kingdom have had interests in the Gulf extending back to the colonial era, the depth of Australia’s engagement is perhaps the most intriguing.  

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s March 10 announcement that Australia would provide defensive military assistance to the UAE will likely have surprised many Australians—but not those with knowledge of Australia’s longstanding collaboration with Abu Dhabi. The package includes deployment of an E-7A Wedgetail long-range early warning and control aircraft with its support team, as well as supply of advanced medium-range air-to-air missiles (AMRAAMs).  

Carefully framing this development as a defensive contribution, Albanese stressed that Australia was not taking offensive action against Iran. Although modest in scale, the aid will constitute a material contribution to air defense and send a potent political message to the UAE and other Gulf partners. The Australian government acknowledged that the decision was taken in response to a request from the UAE and other countries, including the United States, to support the defense of the Gulf states. Australia was one of the first US allies to declare support for the US-Israeli strikes in Iran and has maintained this support as the operation and its ever-widening repercussions have evolved.  

Why, then, has Australia, a country 9000 kilometers from the Gulf, made such an intervention? Albanese highlighted that this commitment would help keep Australians in the region safe, with 24,000 Australian expatriates in the UAE alone.  But this decision goes well beyond protecting Australian citizens. Australia and the UAE have been steadily deepening their economic and security relationship for decades, with the UAE now Australia’s largest trade and investment partner in the Middle East and the primary hub for Australian business interests in the region. The two countries acknowledged this by elevating their bilateral relationship to a formal strategic partnership in September 2025. However, the military dimensions of the relationship are the most striking.

Strategically, Australia has always had to balance the near and the far. The most recent Australian defense strategyprioritized defense of Australia and its immediate region, elevating the importance of regional deterrence and denial missions. But it also continued to emphasize the need to protect Australia’s economic connection to the world and to contribute to both collective security of the Indo-Pacific and maintenance of the global rules-based order.  

This tension for Australia’s national security decisionmakers has arguably played out more prominently in the Middle East than in any other region. Despite historical skepticism about the materiality of Australia’s interests in the region (a 1982 parliamentary inquiry concluded that Australia had no direct strategic interest in the Gulf) it has undertaken a series of substantial military deployments there since the first Gulf War in 1991-92 and especially in support of the post-2001 “global war on terror”.  

A consequence of these deployments has been the development of a close military relationship with the UAE, where Australia has maintained a logistics support base at al-Minhad (the target of recent Iranian drone strikes) since 2003. This base, Headquarters Middle East, is Australia’s only forward-deployed defense headquarters. While the Australian presence was scaled back after the 2021 Afghanistan drawdown, the current footprint supports 12 current Australian military operations in the region and provides a scalable hub for crisis or conflict response. Importantly, it also has a mission to maintain “strategic relationships within the region, particularly with the UAE”.   

The two countries have had a comprehensive defense cooperation treaty in place since 2008, overseen by a Joint UAE-Australia Defence Cooperation Committee. The treaty explicitly enables materiel cooperation, military and technical training, logistics support, and security and defense policy cooperation. It does not, however, extend to mutual security or consultation commitments—at least for now. 

Australia also has a significant defense export relationship with the UAE.  By some estimates, the UAE has become Australia’s largest defense customer, with five-year sales totaling $AUD 288 million. That has been controversial, given allegations of UAE misconduct in Yemen and arms shipments to Sudan. An Australian technology company, Electro-Optic Systems, is one of the most successful exporters, establishing a joint venture with the UAE in 2025 to produce (also controversial) remote weapons systems. 

This longstanding engagement has produced some influential interpersonal connections. Most notably, Australian Major General Mike Hindmarsh, a former commander of Australia’s Middle East operations, was appointed a special national security advisor to the UAE in 2009 and later major general in charge of the UAE’s Presidential Guard from 2011 to 2024. The latter role attracted scrutiny in 2016 over the Presidential Guard’s operations in Yemen. Hindmarsh currently leads the UAE’s military university and the country’s armed-forces modernization program. Many other former Australian defense personnel have also reportedly taken positions in the UAE military in uniformed roles and as contractors.   

The multidimensional nature and depth of Australian connections with the UAE have likely given rise to assumptions on the UAE’s part of implicit, broader Australian security commitments. Abu Dhabi undoubtedly aspires to formalize deeper mutual security understandings and is demonstrating the priority it attaches to the relationship by constructing a massive new embassy complex in Canberra. 

Australia will be wary of taking its existing entanglement to the level of formal commitments. But its swift (though measured) military response to the UAE’s appeal for support, coupled with an imperilled UAE’s amplified desire for closer security partnerships, will inevitably increase the impetus for deeper security ties, as will any additional commitments, should they eventuate.  

Similar dilemmas will also face France, the United Kingdom, and other Gulf partners—and are likely to become more acute. It is impossible to judge how this current Gulf conflict will play out, but unless there is a fundamental and enduring neutralization of the Iranian threat, Gulf states will almost certainly be seeking more substantive security quid pro quos for the geographic and economic benefits they offer.   

The views expressed herein are those solely of the author(s). GMF as an institution does not take positions.