United Arab Emirates

UAE: Hydrocarbon-Heavy Energy Profile, Decade-Old Military Spending Data

The United Arab Emirates' GDP was $552.3 billion in 2024, per the World Bank's WDI series, with GDP per capita of $50,274 and a population of 11.0 million. The IMF's World Economic Outlook projects government debt at 31.4 percent of GDP in 2026, one of the lower debt projections in this batch. Reserves stood at $237.9 billion as of 2024, per the World Bank's WDI series — a notably large buffer relative to GDP, though this reserves figure is World Bank-sourced rather than drawn from the IMF's International Financial Statistics used for several other countries in this set, so cross-country reserve comparisons should account for that difference in source.

Military Posture

SIPRI's figures for UAE military expenditure are dated 2014: $22.8 billion, or 5.644 percent of GDP under SIPRI's own GDP series for that year. This is eleven years old relative to the 2024-2025 figures used elsewhere in this briefing and says nothing about current UAE defense spending; it is reported here only because the dataset supplies nothing more recent. The percent-of-GDP figure, in particular, should not be treated as a current ratio, and under no circumstances should it be recalculated against the 2024 World Bank GDP figure above, since it uses SIPRI's own 2014 GDP series. Active personnel totaled 83,000 as of 2022, per COW NMC, with a CINC score of 0.00473 for the same year.

Governance

V-Dem's 2025 data (v15) scores the UAE at 0.104 on electoral democracy and 0.077 on liberal democracy — among the lowest scores in this batch — with a state capacity score of 0.638. These are V-Dem's expert-coded index values on a 0-to-1 scale.

Energy

Primary energy consumption was 5.48 exajoules in 2024, per Our World in Data. Electricity generation reached 177.26 terawatt-hours, also 2024. Oil production was 2,090.46 terawatt-hours and gas production 614.02 terawatt-hours, both 2024 — among the largest hydrocarbon production volumes in this batch, consistent with the UAE's position as a major oil and gas producer.

Data Gaps

The military-expenditure figures are the most significant gap in this briefing: both the dollar amount and the percent-of-GDP figure are eleven years stale. No trade, inflation, or GDP growth figures appear in the supplied data, and the debt figure is a 2026 projection rather than an observed result.

Sources: World Bank WDI, IMF WEO, SIPRI Milex, COW NMC, V-Dem v15, Our World in Data (Energy)