Jordan to reactivate military service amid heightened regional tensions

Jordan’s Crown Prince Hussein bin Abdullah has announced the reactivation of national military service in the country after a more than three-decade suspension.

The announcement was made on Sunday during a meeting with young Jordanians in Irbid, northern Jordan, where the Crown Prince described national service as a means to prepare citizens to serve their country, foster values such as discipline, and strengthen national identity and connection to the homeland.

“Young Jordanians must be prepared to serve and defend their country,” the Crown Prince said. 

Jordan ended conscription in 1991, under which men between the ages of 18 and 40 had to serve in the army for two years.

Since 2020, only young unemployed men have been subject to a one-year military service, a measure taken at the time to fight unemployment in the midst of the economic crisis linked to the Covid-19 pandemic.

According to official government spokesperson Mohammad Momani, the new conscription programme will consist of a predominant military track and a theoretical track.

It will begin for individuals born in 2007 and for those who turn 18 by next January. The first phase will include 6,000 participants and will increase to 10,000 as soon as possible, following a gradual plan to cover the majority of eligible participants in the coming years.

“There will be no exceptions for those selected, and His Royal Highness the Crown Prince has been firm on the importance of ensuring transparency,” Momani said, adding that the programme will consider exemptions as stipulated by law, such as for only sons or individuals who are medically unfit.

The duration of the military service, whose implementation is scheduled to begin early next year, has not yet been made public.

Mounting instability

The announcement comes as Jordan is watching with apprehension events in neighbouring countries, in particular mounting instability in Syria following the fall of Bashar al-Assad, the deterioration of the situation for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

Last month, a Jordanian political analyst told MEE that Jordan was facing “serious external threats that require internal unity”. 

"Jordan now faces two major, unprecedented strategic threats,” he said, citing first the “threat of the collapse of the Syrian state” which could “possibly spark a widespread civil war that would impact the region and Jordan”.

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"The second is the threat of the displacement of Palestinians from the West Bank to Jordan, leading to a change in the demographic composition of the Hashemite kingdom."

Answering journalists’ questions about whether Jordan faces a real threat that prompted the urgent announcement of the programme, Momani said “there is no rush”.

The threat, the minister added, “comes from the extreme Israeli right wing. Their behaviour in undermining the chances of a two-state solution affects regional stability, so we stand with our state and its institutions in responding wisely and rationally to this extremist madness.”

Since the outbreak of the war in Gaza, Jordan has reiterated it commitment to the two-state solution and rejected Israel and US President Donald Trump's plans to displace Palestinians.

Well-placed sources told MEE earlier this year that Amman was ready to declare war on Israel in the event that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attempted to forcibly expel Palestinians into its territory.

Jordan had previously sent extra battalions to its western borders following an unambiguous statement from Amman that it would view any attempt to force Palestinians across the border as a gross breach of the country's 1994 peace treaty with Israel.

Israel responded by creating a new eastern division to guard its border with Jordan.

Domestic challenges

Last month, the kingdom also condemned remarks by Netanyahu in which he expressed support for the idea of a "Greater Israel", which includes occupied Palestinian territory as well as parts of Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. 

However, as the situation in Gaza deteriorates, Jordanian authorities have faced unprecedented criticism over their diplomatic relations with Israel, to which they responded with an unprecedented wave of repression.

Over the past few months, Jordan’s intelligence agency has detained and interrogated hundreds of people who have shown solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, in what is the largest arrest campaign to have taken place in the kingdom in decades, MEE reported.  

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This crackdown, in turn, is inadvertently fuelling an "internal crisis", sources have told MEE.

Since the start of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, massive protests have erupted to denounce Jordan’s 1994 peace treaty with Israel.

The two countries are known to cooperate on numerous regional security issues. While Amman has halted co-operation with Israel on development and infrastructure projects, it still imports large volumes of water and gas from the country.

In the face of growing regional and domestic instability, the kingdom is mainly dependent on the US for military support.

Amman has a defence agreement with Washington under which thousands of US troops are in the country.

The kingdom is also among the largest recipients of US aid globally, as Washington has for decades relied on Jordan to help achieve its goals in the Middle East, including in the fight against al-Qaeda and ISIS.