In late April 2026, Axios reported that Israel had deployed an Iron Dome air defense battery to the United Arab Emirates along with Israel Defense Forces (IDF) personnel to operate it during the US-Israel-Iran War, particularly to help the country intercept Iranian missiles. The US Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, later confirmed the deployment and attributed it to “an extraordinary relationship between the UAE and Israel based on the Abraham Accords.” The UAE acknowledged the gesture, with an Emirati official saying, “We are not going to forget it.”

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This is the central question raised by the article, which will examine the deployment as an instrument of soft power. However, the problem that arises here is that soft power generally does not include military capabilities as a source of attraction since it is considered a part of a country’s hard power, i.e., achieving a country’s goals though coercion or inducement instead of attraction. However, the Emirati response suggests that the military deployment produced something closer to gratitude and goodwill – characteristics of soft power. This is the primary puzzle of this article – whether defensive military technologies can generate attraction and satisfy diplomatic goals, and if yes, under what circumstances, and what are the limits of such exchanges?

Two arguments are put forward by the article regarding this aspect. Firstly, it argues that, unlike traditional soft power studies dictate, military technologies, primarily defensive, can be utilized as diplomatic instruments when it follows the three conditions of transfer, co-development, and deployment. Such an argument is based on the concepts of defense diplomacy and arms transfers as diplomacy that considers military cooperation and assistance as instruments of foreign policy. It further draws upon Nye’s soft power theory, especially his later works, where he specifically acknowledges military resources having the ability to generate attraction if used for protection and assistance. As such, the article draws upon these concepts and theories to establish defensive systems as a hybrid resource that is hard in form, but capable of producing soft power effects, and in the Israel-UAE case, become instruments of normalization. However, another argument put forth by the article concerns the limitations of soft power being used in such a manner. Nye argues that such resources do not automatically translate to desired outcomes, and in this case, it raises a potent paradox – while defensive systems can generate desired soft power diplomacy, it mainly operates at the level of governments and security organizations, and does not always extend to the wider public, or other states, or eliminates political questions that defines how the region views the provider, which, in this case, is Israel.

Defensive technology as diplomacy

The literature on arms transfers as a diplomatic instrument is well established. However, nowhere is it more pronounced than in the case of Israel, which, facing growing diplomatic isolation ever since its formation, used arms sales to build relationships with governments that were otherwise reluctant to engage with it openly. Using arms sales as means of pursuing its economic and political interests, Israel has transformed itself into a mid-level supplier. However, what distinguishes the country’s arms sales from purely commercial transactions to ones that has helped it to achieve its political interests, is that it follows three primary logics – strategic, economic, and risk-related. Defensive technologies used in diplomacy are not merely about export metrics and commercial gains. They go deeper, creating three levels that justify their diplomatic appeal. The primary functions of these technologies include intercepting incoming threats, such as missiles, rockets, and drones, mainly to protect the territory rather than projecting force. This allows them to build relationships with states with which they previously had no diplomatic ties, reinforcing the provider’s image as a ‘problem solver’ or protector of its allies. Existing classifications of missile-defense cooperation differentiate between sales, cooperative research and development, and hosting a provider’s systems on a partner’s territory. Building on these studies, the article analyses three levels of defensive cooperation, namely, transfer, co-development, and deployment.

Moving to the first layer, i.e., transfer, the provider sells or supplies a defensive system to another state which is then operated by the recipient state. The relationship here is mainly commercial, with limited political signaling. Above this layer is co-development, wherein the provider and the recipient develop the defensive technology jointly, either directly through state organizations or private defense firms, resulting in the creation of long-term industrial and technological ties between the states along with shared stake in the products. The joint Israel-US co-development of defensive systems such as David’s Sling and the Arrow can be cited as examples. The third level is deployment, wherein the provider sends its own systems and personnel to defend the recipient’s territory, especially during an active crisis. As a result, the provider’s forces become directly involved in the recipient’s security. Each level increases three things, namely, the depth of operational integration between states, the visibility of the relationship, and the cost and risk borne by the provider. When the provider is so fully engaged in the relationship, it also strengthens political ties. Each sale signals a willingness to trade; co-development........

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