["Middle East Policy, Volume 33, Issue 3, Autumn (Fall) 2026. ", "\nAbstract\nIn late 2025, Saudi Arabia adopted an aggressive posture toward the United Arab Emirates, shifting the relationship from coordination to visible tension. This occurred despite no recent changes in Emirati capabilities, behavior, or ideology. The deterioration poses a puzzle for theories of alignment in the Global South and the Middle East, which underplay how domestic, regional, and global levels of analysis interact to shape threat perceptions and alignment dynamics. Our multi‐track alignment theory posits that regimes seek to manage their security environments by constructing strategic alliances that vary according to the hierarchy of perceived threats, ranging from moderate to existential. The theory builds on features of Middle Eastern politics derived from complex realism: Regime weakness and transnational ideologies at the domestic and regional levels constitute the primary sources of threat and the first layer of the hierarchy, while great‐power policies at the global level form the final layer. We test the theory by analyzing bilateral Saudi, Emirati, and Egyptian relations after the Arab Spring. The findings show that while shared ideology facilitated the initial partnerships, divergences in threat hierarchies affected their willingness to provide assistance to one another. This produced different alignment types with varying strategic value and internal influence among allies.\n"]