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The Emergence of the United Arab Emirates i97

of a general policy of cutting defence costs and not owing to any
nationalistic clamour for independence on the Trucial Coast. Since
Britain had only very recently started to play a role in the internal
affairs of the Coast, there was little chance for the seeds of change that
arc usually sown, albeit unwittingly, by a colonial power to take effect.
Furthermore, the society on the Coast had not had time to become
totally aware of its own limitations, an awareness that would have
stimulated the process of development, directing it to attack first the
power that had dominated it. As it was, the shaykhdoms expressed
unique reluctance at the prospect of British withdrawal, for it was
Britain that had preserved them from being absorbed by their larger
and more powerful neighbours.
One of the reasons for the formation of the UAE was the strong
desire for mutual security: in an increasingly energy-conscious age,
a practical and efficient defence system for what is a strategically
and financially important area is essential. Until it is able to bridge
the gap between its past and its present, the UAE will have to
rely on imported models and manpower for the structure of its
defence, economy and political life, especially as its population
is very small (about 700,000) and spread over a large area (about
30,000 square miles). Most of all, it will have to reconcile all
the differences between its member states, for whom the formation
of a union was the only logical solution to the vacuum left by
Britain.
The former Trucial shaykhdoms have more in common than
a history of treaty relations with Britain. Their social structure,
their geography, their political characteristics, their maritime past
and former dependence on pearl-fishing all combine to link them
together. The first time all the rulers of the Coast gathered together
was in 1905, when Zayid bin Khaiifah called a meeting in Abu
Dhabi in order to solve outstanding territorial disputes. The meeting
was generally successful, but was not to be repeated for almost
fifty years. In the meantime, others had thought of the possibility
of uniting the Trucial states. In the 1930s the qadi of Ras al-Khaimah
lived for a while in Buraimi in * order to promote some form
of union of the rulers on the Coast; when his plans came to
nothing, he left Buraimi and settled in Ras al-Khaimah. Another
premature suggestion for the formation of a federation came from
an unlikely and rather remote source. In 1938 an anti-British article
in a Cairo newspaper reported that the British Government was
plotting the formation of a union on the Coast. Since the report
was without any foundation in truth, it can only be deduced that
the possibility of a federation was being discussed as far away
as Egypt; the idea of a union sponsored by Britain was then,
however, regarded with suspicion as imperial strategy to curtail