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Amid a relative withdrawal of western, liberal states from the Middle East, the United Arab Emirates have taken over some of the burden of regional security assistance – doing so redefining norms and practices of security assistance. Unlike western counterparts, the UAE are investing into security assistance in Libya or Yemen, not so much as a means of state and nation-building overseas, but as means of building networks allowing the small state to project influence and power with few normative strings attached. More so, the UAE deliver security assistance via surrogates as discrete means of statecraft allowing Abu Dhabi to compete overseas with plausible deniability. Many of these surrogates do not only challenge the state’s monopoly over violence but ultimately under mine legitimate government institutions by creating alternative forms of secur ity sector-based governance. Ultimately, the UAE’s approach to security assistance is based on divide-and-rule, ripening particularly potent networks of surrogates over others to ensure that competitors are unable to secure their interests.