The 21st century came with a set of multiple challenges for the safety, security, and prosperity of the UAE going far beyond conventional threats. Aside from military incursions and economic threats, which are considered deterministic and tied with the traditional foreign relations, the last two decades have seen various nonconventional threats. They arise from both state and non-state actors, including informational warfare, cyberattacks on critical installations, and threats of biological nature such as the COVID-19 pandemic (Dalby, 2017). In addition, the escalating ecological and economic situation around the world offers a plethora of non-conventional threats, ranging from uncontrolled mass migration to natural disasters, poverty, and social unrest. The UAE is exposed to all and any of these threats, thus requiring the formation of a Ministry of Non-Conventional Security Threats to prepare and deal with these situations.
Vision
To ensure the safety and stability of the UAE in times of crisis by reducing the impact of non-conventional threats on its security, economy, and the society.
Mission
To protect domestic interests and citizens of the UAE from nonconventional threats by researching the mechanisms and pathology of these issues, creating the means of mitigating their negative effects on the state, and coordinating the efforts of different ministries in times of nonconventional crisis.
Objectives
- Ensuring that the state of the UAE is constantly updated and aware of all and any contemporary unconventional security threats;
- Researching the ways in which said security threats could hinder UAE interests as well as the livelihood of its citizens, and to what degree would said threats affect the life in the country;
- Developing effective strategies to counter said threads and creating contingency plans in an event of dangerous situations escalating;
- Ensuring effective coordination between different branches of the government during times of crisis;
- Achieving the objective of a safer and more prosperous UAE by accomplishing the objectives established above.
Services
- Cybersecurity evaluation and protection. The purpose of this service is to evaluate the state of vulnerability to cyberthreats of all important governmental, strategic, and economic institutions, and providing the means of protection against such (Ellis & Mohan, 2019);
- Migration crisis services. These would be dedicated to preparing and responding to the unforeseen issues of uncontrolled migration as a result of various human-made or natural disasters occurring abroad (Shaked, Czeiger, & Sebbag, 2020);
- Environmental disaster services. Deals with issues that might arise as a result of the global environmental crisis (Dalby, 2017);
- Epidemiological, biological, and medical services. This department would be dedicated to preparing, maintaining, and coordinating medical services to respond to the aforementioned threats. The example of a threat under this service’s jurisdiction would be COVID-19 (Shaked et al., 2020).
- Social services. The ministry will seek to mediate all and any social unrests resulting as part of an emergency or informational intervention on the part of third forces (Dalby, 2017).
- Coordination services. The ministry as a whole would serve as a coordinating center between different governmental agencies and institutions as part of a combined response to any of the aforementioned crises.
The connections to other branches of the UAE government as well as the variety of services offered by the ministry of non-conventional security threats would ensure high levels of inter-departmental cooperation and responsiveness to complex crises, many of which target more than a single area of interest.
References
- Dalby, S. (2017). Anthropocene formations: Environmental security, geopolitics and disaster. Theory, Culture & Society, 34(2-3), 233-252.
- Ellis, R., & Mohan, V. (Eds.). (2019). Rewired: cybersecurity governance. John Wiley & Sons.
- Shaked, G., Czeiger, D., & Sebbag, G. (2020). WSES handbook of mass casualties incident management. Springer, Cham.