British naval assistance at the twilight of empire: The case of Abu Dhabi, 1966–1968

Abstract

Britain long sought to establish, develop and utilise local military capabilities across its empire. In its informal empire among the Arab Gulf Sheikhdoms of Eastern Arabia, Britain increasingly encouraged – and often cajoled – its protégés to build up their own security forces as London's moment in the Middle East was coming to an end. The scholarly literature on imperial assistance to local forces is invariably army-centric; little attention is given to how powers such as Britain helped establish local naval forces. This article seeks to address this imbalance by describing how British naval institutions supported the establishment of the local naval force in Abu Dhabi in the years immediately before British withdrawal from the region in 1971. This case study expands the historiography of British military assistance to cover naval forces and describes the repertoire of support provided by the Royal Navy and Navy Department.