The emphasis on uncrewed maritime systems serves to plug manpower shortages and capability gaps, as the Gulf country’s naval branch is its smallest force at roughly 3,000 active personnel.

Abu Dhabi has adopted a mixed approach to this end, boosting indigenous capabilities and partnering with international companies. The IDEX and NAVDEX defense fairs here saw the debuts of several unmanned surface vessels.

Among them was the WAM-V manufactured by U.S.-based company Ocean Power Technologies, which markets the platform as the pickup truck of the USV world. The commercially available vehicle, previously deployed for the U.S. Navy in Bahrain as part of Task Force 59, was shown in a 22-feet configuration.

“Its success is due to its high utility and versatility – you can deploy anything, from an underwater sonar for anti-submarine warfare or mine detection to communication nodes to an underwater or aerial drone, such as those provided by our [U.S.] partner Redcat,” Philipp Stratmann, chief executive officer of OPT, said.

The company announced last year that it was expanding its footprint in the Gulf state by partnering with local distributor Remah International Group for defense systems.

In discussing the decision to increase the company’s activities here, Stratmann pointed to the significant market interest by the UAE.

“Given also the amount of coastal water, the large number of offshore oil and gas installations, and the tense security situation, this is a great region for us to expand into –we have one vehicle actively demonstrating our capabilities, one buoy en route for a security customer, a signing of an agency agreement for Kuwait, and ongoing discussions with the UAE Forces,” Stratmann said.

Another platform showcased for the first time at the event was the UAE-made DV10 optionally-manned interceptor. The 10.2-meter vessel was jointly developed by Abu Dhabi Ship Building, Steer AI, the Technology Innovation Institute, and Edge. It can be equipped with a remote weapon station of different calibers, including 5.56mm, 7.62, or 12.7mm, and it possesses swarming capabilities.

Additional partnerships announced during the show included an agreement signed between Abu Dhabi-based Al Seer Marine and ST Engineering to foster closer cooperation on USVs.

Emirati companies have also turned to their regional allies to secure contracts. In January, Al Seer Marine announced that it signed a deal with Saudi Arabia’s Advanced Electronics Company to supply USVs for the Kingdom.

The assessment follows plans by the Trump administration to field such a system under the Iron Dome label. The U.S. president signed an executive order to that effect last month, with the goal of thwarting ballistic, hypersonic, and advanced cruise missiles.

While the idea quickly gained momentum among Republican lawmakers who introduced the Iron Dome Act on Feb. 6, it has also come under criticism by experts and industry officials who argue that deploying such a system would be unrealistic given what it was designed for.

“Iron Dome for America is a bad name for it — what about Titanium Dome?” Dave Alexander, the president of drone maker General Atomics quipped in an interview on the IDEX trade show floor.

Iron Dome was developed by the Israeli firm Rafael with Washington’s support. The majority of the components of the Tamir interceptor missiles that the Iron Dome fires are sourced through RTX’s, formerly Raytheon, U.S. supply chain.

Retired Brig. Gen. Shachar Shohat, vice president of business development in the air and missile defense division at Rafael, acknowledged that as countries have latched on to the branding of Iron Dome, there is confusion around its purpose.

“We need to differentiate between the Iron Dome, which is a short to medium-range range system — it became a brand name like Coca Cola that now everybody uses as it is highly successful,” he said in an interview with Defense News. But, Shohat added, Israel’s multilayered air-defense doctrine is about more than one system.

The Israeli weapon can neutralize threats launched from ranges between 4-70 kilometers, per the RTX website. A total of ten Iron Dome batteries are deployed in Israel, each able to protect approximately 60 square miles of territory.

For perspective, the U.S. territory spans an area of 3.8 million square miles, which would theoretically require tens of thousands of Iron Domes to effectively protect the country’s population and infrastructure.

In a December interview, Adm. Pierre Vandier, NATO’s top commander for transformation, similarly called the Iron Dome for Europe “unfeasible” if the goal is to intercept long-range threats.

The Rafael executive said the system could nevertheless be part of multilayered defenses to protect key sites and maneuver forces.

With that use case in mind, Shohat said that the company has seen “big demand” for Iron Dome specifically, including in Europe.

Last year, Greek officials said they were in negotiations with Israel to develop an anti-aircraft and missile defense dome that would mimic the capabilities of the Israeli system.

Meanwhile, General Atomics claims to have developed a technology for fusing early-warning sensor data over vast areas that could power a patchwork of Iron Dome-like installations. The system has already been tested and deployed in an unspecified location, Alexander said.

The XRange, of which a mock-up was unveiled at the Dubai Airshow in 2023, is located southwest of Abu Dhabi on the 135-square-mile island of Abu Al Abyad, the equivalent of nearly twice the area of Washington, D.C.

The site’s expansion will include the construction of a secondary 1.2-kilometer runway to support unmanned aerial systems’ take-off and landing, two new emergency runways to boost recovery capabilities, and a new, already operational drone training facility.

Dubbed the UAS drone training village, it is designed for low-level drone testing in simulated urban environments. It enables operators to practice discerning city elements using artificial intelligence and operating first-person-view drones.

Footage released by Edge of the dedicated simulation facilities shows what appear to be dozens of large container boxes and improvised patches of grass in the desert.

Another addition will include the establishment of a vehicle blast and ballistics capability, where defense and commercial customers will be able to assess the resilience of their civilian or armored vehicles against small arms, anti-tank mines, and rocket-propelled grenades.

Extended airspace has also been introduced as part of the expansion – where clients now have access to an optional 100-kilometer x 25-kilometer air corridor west of Abu Al Abyad island, which can be cleared up to 10,000 feet, per a company press release.

According to Remaya International, Edge’s branch overseeing the venture, Xrange is the largest testing site of its kind in the Gulf region.

It is unclear whether it has attracted international defense companies beyond the region. The chief executive officer of Remaya International previously told Defense News that all the platforms in Edge’s portfolio have been trialed at the range.

For example, the company used the range to conduct the first flight of the Jeniah jet-powered drone last year. Other local manufacturers have also conducted similar tests for cargo UAVs.

The General Motors subsidiary will work on the project with NIMR Automotive, an arm of the Emirati defense conglomerate, to assess demand for military platforms in the Middle East and Africa region.

“We plan to leverage off NIMR’s local facility for potential future production of the Infantry Squad Vehicle (ISV) in several variants, including the cargo one, which is garnering significant demand,” Bradley Watters, vice president for international business development at GM Defense, told Defense News.

Upon request, the manufacturer would also be prepared to establish its own production facility in the UAE, which would be a first for the U.S. company.

Two vehicle variants armed with Emirati systems were on display at the IDEX and NAVDEX defense fairs here, the infantry utility version equipped with EDGE-made Q Copter munitions, and the next-generation tactical vehicle configuration with Hunter loitering munitions.

The partnership announced during the show here builds on a previous agreement signed in 2023 with the Tawazun Council, the Abu Dhabi-based government agency in charge of procurement.

The GM-made ISV completed summer trials in the Gulf country in 2023. The evaluation entailed a 2,000-kilometer march across sand dunes, soft sand tracks and rocky fields.

The intention is to have the company’s recently developed Next Generation Tactical Vehicle, or NGTV, undergo the same assessments as part of the 2026 summer trials, company officials said.

As GM Defense continues to expand its footprint in the Middle East, the company is interested in integrating some of its power propulsion and engine systems into existing regional platforms.

One of the key technologies engineers have developed through its hybrid electric vehicles, including the NGTV-H, is the ability to drive silently, a feature advertised by the company as an advantage in combat.

“We are still in the very early stages but are pursuing this hard as there is a huge interest coming from Saudi regarding the MQ-9B — we expect they have significant requirements [for these drones] that could result in many of tens of thousands of jobs in the U.S. if we were to close that sale,” Dave Alexander, president of General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, told Defense News.

While the executive was coy about specifics — the Kingdom has yet to commit to anything — he noted that the combo offer includes a “large number of aircraft” among other things, and would involve local involvement within the country.

The company declined to elaborate on what else would be contained in the deal.

Saudi Arabia has previously looked to China and Turkey as its drone manufacturers of choice, with the purchase of Chinese-made CH-4s in 2014 followed by more orders for the Wing Loong IIs.

In 2023, the Gulf country also acquired the Akinci combat drones from Turkish manufacturer Baykar, which the company’s chief executive Haluk Bayraktar called the largest defense deal in history between the two countries in an interview with Defense News.

In the last few years, a sense of frustration was somewhat palpable in the Gulf region regarding requests for U.S. defense equipment, which suffered from significant delays and came with several conditions stemming from Washington’s export control regime.

For example, in 2021, following the U.S. State Department’s decision to delay Qatar’s year-old request to buy MQ-9Bs, the Wall Street Journal reported that some Qatari officials were becoming irritated from not receiving any explanations behind the hold-up.

Alexander is optimistic that things will change under the new Trump administration when it comes to fast-tracking defense deals with regional allies that were previously halted or delayed.

“The future is bright with this new administration in that I think [Trump] will open up to a lot more pro-business in the area allowing us to move forward, treat our partners here like equals … and getting deals done and not making everybody mad with silly conditions,” he said.

Alexander added that he expects the sale of the SeaGuardians to the UAE will resume under Trump.

The multi-year negotiation process to export 18 MQ-9Bs, which began in 2020 with the U.S. approval for the sale, has been chaotic, to say the least. The drone acquisition was previously linked to an additional deal where the Emiratis would receive 50 F-35s, which was eventually halted over concerns about the country’s use of Chinese technology.

General Atomics’ offering is a stand-alone one that remains separate from any potential fighter purchase from Lockheed Martin.

“No more weighing us down with that — 2025 is going to be a big year for us in the [Gulf] region,” Alexander added.

Trump has expressed admiration for Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, the authoritarian ruler of Saudi Arabia, with whom he connects sizable business interests. Relations between the two countries were icier during the Biden administration because of Ryadh’s human rights record.

The project, dubbed the Drone Line, was announced by the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense on Feb 9. According to statements made by Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, it has two core objectives: building a continuous drone reconnaissance capability along the line of defense, and boosting support for and coordination with infantry units to create a kind buffer strip where no troops can move undetected.

Kyiv’s call for an unmanned buffer zone came before U.S. proclamations saying Ukraine and Europe would largely be bystanders in negotiations between Washington and Moscow aimed at ending the war. High-ranking delegations were set to meet in Ryadh, Saudi Arabia, on Tuesday, though an actual ceasefire could take months to hammer out.

Mykyta Rozhkov, chief managing officer at the Ukrainian robotics engineering company Frontline, explains that the envisioned zone’s technical specifications are in line with Kyiv’s capability plans for unmanned systems.

“It reflects current technological capabilities and strategic considerations — this range allows for effective recon and engagement of enemy forces before they can pose a direct threat to Ukrainian positions,” Rozhkov told Defense News ahead of the IDEX defense expo here.

Given the rate at which local manufacturers are able to field drones, there is potential to expand the range to up to 40 kilometers, he added.

Several Ukrainian companies are currently able to produce as many as 2,500 heavy drones per month and 4,000 small drones per day, according to a statement published on social media by Valerii Iakovenko, the founder of DroneUA, a group encompassing a range of Ukrainian companies specializing in drone technology.

Representatives of the DroneUA ground robotics division were present at IDEX, where a key focus of the Ukrainian pavilion was showcasing the full spectrum of unmanned capabilities.

Among them is the Chaklun family of drones, for example, manufactured by the Ukrainian company RC Direction and shown for the first time in the Middle East market. The fixed-wing aircraft have been in use by the Ukrainian Armed Forces for several months.

“The Chaklun-K and Interceptor drones are functioning air defense systems designed to counter enemy reconnaissance and strike drone types – their main advantage is they can stay in the air for more than two hours in monitoring mode, which is much longer than conventional FPVs,” Ivan Sybyriakov, senior manager of the Unmanned Systems Center at SPETS Techno Export told Defense News.

The joint venture, known as Maestral, which was created in May 2024, will oversee “comprehensive maintenance management of the UAE Navy to meet key operational and logistic needs” and support the UAE Navy’s “transformation journey to new levels of performance,” Fincantieri said in a statement.

The deal reflects the move by Italian firms, including Fincantieri and Leonardo, to enter into long-term partnerships with Gulf firms to transfer skills and technologies.

When it was launched, Fincantieri said the joint venture would be be 51% owned by EDGE but run by Fincantieri managers, and would aim to build and sell naval vessels to non-NATO countries, taking advantage of the UAE’s relations with other states and the export credit financing it offers.

State controlled Fincantieri is Italy’s main naval contractor and is also building FREMM frigates for the US Navy at its U.S.-controlled yard.

Founded in 2019, EDGE is a advanced technology group which groups 25 UAE firms and employs 8,000.

At the time it was created, the firms said the joint venture would enhance’s Edge’s ship design skills, while the joint venture would also develop mid-size submarines.

The new contract to maintain the UAE fleet was awarded by Tawazun Council, a government entity that works closely with the UAE Ministry of Defence and security agencies in the United Arab Emirates.

A mockup of new hybrid-electric vehicle, dubbed Havoc, is on display here at the IDEX and NAVDEX trade shows that run Feb. 17-21.

The platform shares commonalities with other of Milrem’s platforms, including the tracked Robotic Combat Vehicle (RCV), enabling reduced procurement and maintenance costs as well as streamlined logistics, according to a company press release.

According to Milrem, the Havoc has a greater operational range and can move nearly silently, an advantage if deployed to congested combat zones.

Milrem, which is owned by Emirati conglomerate Edge Group, appears interested in tapping into the Middle East market as the first potential customers for the ground vehicle, promoting its capabilities to operate in “open deserts, urban combat zones to high-altitude mountain passes.”

At the 2024 UMEX drone fair in Abu Dhabi, Milrem signed a contract with the United Arab Emirates Ministry of Defense to provide Emirati forces with 20 tracked RCVs and 40 THeMIS unmanned ground vehicles.

For several years, the THeMIS cargo, casualty-evacuation and route-clearance variants have been deployed by the Ukrainian military to provide transport and demining assistance.

Lessons drawn from real-world operations such as these are reflected in the development of the Havoc, a Milrem spokesman told Defense News.

“One major takeaway has been the importance of seamless command and control integration – the Havoc has been designed to operate within a large ecosystem, integrating effectively with both manned and unmanned systems to increase combat efficiency,” spokesman Gert Hankewitz said.

In one picture released of the vehicle, it is seen mounted with the French-made Pilar V acoustic detector produced by Metravib Defense, typically designed to protect heavy and light armored vehicles.

When asked whether Milrem’s Emirati owners provided specific elements for the design of the UGV, Hankewitz said that they were actively exploring ways to maximize synergies across platforms, including integrating existing Edge payloads.

The massive stand is in contrast to the footprint at recent shows, where Russian arms makers have kept a low profile or – in the case of European exhibitions – weren’t admitted at all because of the invasion of Ukraine.

With over a dozen Russian exhibitors, many of whom pitched upgraded variants of their weapons, the 2025 IDEX setting was noticeably different from the 2023 edition, when Russian companies were not even listed on the show’s official website – though they still had space in a separate pavilion outside the main hall.

This time around, Russian exhibitors were placed in one of the busiest halls of the show here, alongside major regional players such as Saudi Arabia’s Military Industries and Qatar’s Barzan Holdings.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 fundamentally altered its arms export industry, which saw a significant revenue plunge.

By the end of 2024, the Washington-based think tank Jamestown Foundation found that Russian weapons transfers had declined by 92% from 2021 levels, primarily due to the redistribution of national resources to support the Ukraine invasion and higher interest rates resulting from international sanctions.

Rosoboronexport, the state agency responsible for military trade, has maintained a business-as-usual composure, stating record level of orders for 2024.

Weeks before the exhibition here, Russian companies tried to create buzz around new products, reaching out to Western journalists and publishing press releases in English.

Among them is the Kalashnikov Group, which announced in mid-January that it would be unveiling a new Kub-2-E strike drone equipped with guided munitions as part of a drone-swarming concept and two new rifle designs.

The drones will be deployed by Russian troops from launchers mounted on armored vehicles, designed to target lightly armored military equipment, air defense systems, and helicopter basing sites, per a company press release.

According to the Institute of the Study of War, an American research organization for military affairs, Russia’s objective in showcasing these technological adaptations here is “to introduce innovations to optimize systems for use in Ukraine.”

Sam Bendett, advisor at the Washington-based Center for Naval Analyses think tank, said Russian defense companies are increasingly trying to capitalize on the claim of combat-proven equipment in the invasion of Ukraine.

Russian officials here also showcased an export variant of the T-90 Proryv main battle tank, which was placed at the centre stage of its pavilion and attracted a significant amount of attention from visitors on the opening day of the show here.

It was equipped with different types of protection against first-person-view drones, which have proven increasingly difficult to defend against across the battlefield.

Moscow has touted the capabilities of the platform in the Middle East since 2015, with little success. The tanks are reported to have suffered heavy combat losses in Ukraine, with open-source intelligence analysts having recorded at least 124 destroyed, according to the Dutch-based equipment tracking group Oryx.

Earlier this week, Erdoğan visited Malaysia and Indonesia before moving on to Pakistan.

He is accompanied by Minister of Foreign Affairs Hakan Fidan, Minister of National Defense Yaşar Güler, Minister of Industry and Technology Mehmet Fatih Kacır, Minister of Agriculture and Forestry İbrahim Yumaklı, and Minister of Trade Ömer Bolat.

In the first stop of the delegation’s visit to Malaysia, a total of 11 agreements were signed between the two countries. One of them was a preliminary acceptance letter for the procurement of multipurpose mission ships between Desan Shipyard and the Malaysian Ministry of Home Affairs.

The commercial value of the contract has not been disclosed by the parties involved.

The Malaysian government said the vessel is expected to be fully operational in the first quarter of 2027, and it will be capable of operating continuously for 30 days. Its onboard features include a helideck, two aerial drones and four fast interceptor boats.

“This 99-meter-long vessel, capable of carrying 70 crew members and 30 passengers, will focus on monitoring activities in the South China Sea, particularly in countering foreign vessel intrusions, illegal fishing activities, and cross-border crimes such as smuggling and human trafficking,” a senior navy official said.

The shipbuilding project is an addition to the continuing LMS batch 2 corvette construction project in Turkey, led by STM shipyard.

In the second leg of his trip, Erdoğan visited Indonesia, where leaders from both nations signed 13 agreements. Among them was a joint venture pact between Republikorp and Baykar for the construction of a drone factory in Indonesia.

According to the press release by Republikorp, the joint firm will focus on manufacturing and maintaining unmanned aerial vehicles.

The primary products to be localized include up to 60 sets of Bayraktar TB3 and up to nine sets of Bayraktar Akinci drones. Baykar will contribute its expertise in manufacturing, technology transfer and training, while Republikorp will ensure regulatory compliance, infrastructure development, local expert certification, and integration into Indonesia’s defense ecosystem.