Over the past two decades, Dubai and Abu Dhabi have developed into centres for soft and hard power, respectively, and have coexisted sometimes uneasily within the broader framework of the UAE and its foreign and security policy landscape. While the impact of the 2007–9 financial crisis and the 2008 ‘bailout’ of Dubai by Abu Dhabi became symbolic of a changing balance of power within the UAE, this chapter examines the external dimension of the evolving positions of the two emirates. The chapter begins with a section that provides historical and comparative context to the rise of Dubai and Abu Dhabi as regional and international actors in the twentieth century. A second section explores the changes which occurred during the 2000s, as leadership changes in each emirate ushered a new generation of assertive figures into positions of decision-making authority. The third and fourth sections contain the core arguments in this chapter, namely two case studies that analyse how Dubai developed into an aspirational hub of soft power, and Abu Dhabi emerged as a centre of gravity for the projection of hard power in security, defence, and foreign policy. The chapter ends with a fifth section which examines the interaction between the two centres, and provides concluding thoughts on the way ahead, as UAE foreign policy again recalibrates from confrontation to reconciliation.