Although the United Arab Emirates, because of its population and territory, is one of the small states in international relations, but its policies in both foreign and domestic spheres during the past two decades have contributed to the promotion of this actor in the Persian Gulf sub-region as well as in the international system. Precisely, the decision made by the country’s statesmen to move towards becoming a regional actor goes back to the period after the death of Sheikh Zayed Al Nahyan, the first leader of the UAE in the post-independence period (1971). Although UAE’s pattern of governance took shape after the operations of the US-led coalition forces in Kuwait intended to expel Iraq from the country in 1991, this process was very conservative and slow until the death of Sheikh Zayed (2004). In the meantime, technological and economic cooperation between the UAE and Israel in 2006 and its exploitation in the form of Israel interceding for the UAE before the United States asking it to ignore the participation of Emirati nationals in the terrorist team responsible for 9/11 attacks became a basis for economic cooperation between the United States and the UAE. However, what completely changed the country's domestic and international practices was the wave of Arab unrest that began in North Africa in 2010 and affected the majority of the Arab states.