page_title: Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan
section_title: Military
hierarchical_section_title: Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan / Military
caption_attribution_description: English: Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen (left) travels to Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates on June 17, 1997, and is met by His Highness Lt.Gen. Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan (center), Chief of Staff, U.A.E. United States Ambassador to U.A.E. the Honorable David Litt is at far right.
context_page_description: Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, colloquially known by his initials as MBZ, is the Crown Prince of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the United Arab Emirates Armed Forces. He is seen as the driving force behind the UAE's interventionist foreign policy and is a leader of a campaign against pro-democracy movements in the Arab World. Due to the ill health of the UAE president Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed, Mohammed bin Zayed was entrusted with most day-to-day decision making of the emirate of Abu Dhabi as the crown prince of Abu Dhabi and most of the presidential public affairs of the state and hence, he is sometimes considered as the UAE's de facto ruler. In 2019, the New York Times named him as the most powerful Arab ruler. In 2020, the New York Times called him "one of the most powerful men on Earth." He was also named as one of the '100 Most Influential People' of 2019 by Time magazine.
context_section_description: Al Nahyan served as an officer in the Amiri Guard (now known as Presidential Guard), as a pilot in the UAE's Air Force, as Commander of the UAE Air Force and Air Defense, and as Deputy Armed Forces Deputy Chief of Staff. In 2005, he was appointed Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces and was accordingly promoted to Lt. General.
  In the early 1990s, Al Nahyan told Richard Clarke, then an assistant secretary of state, that he wanted to buy the F-16 fighter jet. Clarke replied that he must mean the F-16A, the model the Pentagon sold to American allies. Al Nahyan said no, he wanted a newer model he’d read about in Aviation Week, with an advanced radar-and-weapons system. Clarke told him that that model didn’t exist yet; the military hadn’t done the necessary research and development. Al Nahyan said the UAE would pay for the research and development. The subsequent negotiations went on for years, and according to Clarke “he ended up with a better F-16 than the U.S. Air Force had”.
  Under Al-Nahyan's leadership, he made jujitsu compulsory in schools. In 2014 he established the military draft, forcing young Emiratis to endure a year of boot camp, initially running a pilot project within his own family and making his own daughters run as the sample size by making them endure a boot camp. He invited Maj. Gen. Mike Hindmarsh, the retired former head of Australia’s Special Operations Command, to help reorganize the Emirati military. According to the New York Times, as a result of Al Nahyan's vision, the United Arab Emirates Armed Forces became the best equipped and trained military in the region apart from Israel. Under Al Nahyan's leadership, the United Arab Emirates Armed Forces also became commonly nicknamed as "Little Sparta" by United States Armed Forces General and former US defense secretary James Mattis as a result of their active and effective military role despite their small active personnel.
  According to a 2020 study, Al Nahyan's reforms successfully increased the effectiveness of the UAE military.
caption: Al Nahyan as Chief of Staff in his airforce military uniform greeting then US Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen in Abu Dhabi, 1997.
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