Jordan has moved to reinstate compulsory national service after Crown Prince Hussein bin Abdullah last week announced a reinstatement of the program after a 34-year dormancy, speaking during a royal visit to Irbid in the kingdom’s north.
The goal is “to prepare young people to serve and defend their homeland,” Hussein, speaking last Sunday, said. “The experience strengthens national identity and the youth’s connection to their country, fostering character and discipline.”
The prince, 31, is a major in the Jordanian Armed Forces (JAF), aka the “Arab Army.”
This announcement was followed by Cabinet action on Wednesday to fast-track amendments to the Military Service and Reserve Service Law.
Officials say the first intake of recruits is slated for Feb. 1, 2026, with the Jordanian Armed Forces in charge. Funding is to come from 2025 emergency allocations and then be folded into the 2026 state budget.
Government spokesperson Mohammad Momani said: “The program aims to strengthen national identity and shape young people physically, intellectually and culturally, instilling values of discipline, hard work, perseverance, teamwork, a volunteer mentality and responsibility.”
He added that preparations to unveil the program have been underway for more than a year. The launch will be tightly controlled and intentionally limited in scope.
According to the JAF, in 2026, 6,000 male participants born in 2007 will be called up in three groups of 2,000, chosen by governorate—1,500 from Amman, 900 from Zarqa, 900 from Irbid and 300 from each of the other governorates.
“The selection mechanism will be electronic, using a neutral statistical lottery method based on clear scientific criteria to ensure fairness,” Momani said. “This methodology will randomly select participants from a single database containing all Jordanian males born in 2007.”
The Jordanian military further announced plans to scale toward 10,000 draftees in subsequent years. Officials describe this as a return to the old conscription program, thereby numbering the 2026 intake as the 54th rather than a blank-slate start.
Service is intended to be compact and regimented: three months of basic training, run three times a year at JAF’s Khaw and Shway’ar camps.
Conscripts are to receive 100 Jordanian dinars ($141) per month. Personal phones and other devices will not be allowed inside camps, and a unit switchboard will handle family calls. Conscripts will be allowed to leave for 48 hours after four weeks of training, followed by weekly leave.
Draft notices will go out through the Interior Ministry, police directorates, Jordan’s Sanad digital government services and identity app and SMS, with an online portal planned once legal steps are complete.
“Those summoned who fail to serve will face penalties under the Military and Reserve Service Law, including imprisonment from three months to a year, followed by mandatory service,” Military spokesman Brig.-Gen. Mustafa al-Hiyari warned.
Momani announced that exemptions will be issued for only children, the medically unfit and those living abroad.
Officials outlined a classroom component alongside drill and fieldwork. A theoretical track delivered by civilian instructors on citizenship, national history and labor-market guidance is supposed to accompany the military training.
The government distinguished this 2026 model from Jordan’s 2020 jobs-and-skills framework, which targeted unemployed 25– to 29-year-olds for 12-month programs consisting of three months of military training and nine months of vocational/technical training, and likewise paid 100 dinars per month, as opposed to the new basic training cycle for 18-year-olds.
Basic military skills
While this program will establish a significant base of recruits with basic military skills for the JAF to draw on in case of military conflict, it is a far cry from the full-scale military conscription that Jordan instituted until 1991. Under the old law, all men aged 18 were required to serve two years in the armed forces and serve as active reserves until age 40.
While many sources in Arab media have linked the reinstatement of conscription to perceived Israeli territorial ambitions on the east side of the Jordan River, the Jordanian government has never made that connection.
While Amman did criticize Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for his recent statement that he “connects with the idea” of a greater Israel, referencing the biblical borders of the Jewish state, these criticisms were leveled in a separate press conference from the one where conscription was announced.
Hillel Frisch, an expert on the Arab world at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security (JISS) said the conscription initiative was more likely motivated by domestic instability rather than foreign threats.
“Jordan has a lot of domestic problems, mostly centered around unemployment and economic instability. National programs such as the one Jordan is instituting are a way to get more troubled people off the street and give them some direction,” Frisch told JNS.
“I think it is unlikely that this move has something to do with Jordan’s military relations with Israel or presents a significant threat to Israel. The number of conscripts is too low and they are barely getting any training,” he added.
Former Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon, chairman of the Silver Road Capital financial advisory firm, said the new conscription law may be directed at bolstering military preparedness. He added, however, that Jordan was likely beefing up its defense due to threats from Syria and Iran rather than any perceived conflict with Israel.
“It’s to defend against Iran and Syria. They are the main threat in the region, they are the source of the instability,” Ayalon explained. “The Jordanians have domestic problems, and likely there is also a strategy of stabilizing the country through this program, but any military or strategic effect is not directed toward Israel. They might talk about Israel in the commentary because they can’t openly say they are worried about Syria and Iran, but in private, that is the major concern for them.”
The U.S. partnership
Practical considerations make it increasingly unlikely that Jordan’s conscription law was directed as a military challenge toward Israel. Amman and Jerusalem remain bound by the 1994 Wadi Araba peace treaty, and Jordan’s security posture is deeply embedded in Western
partnerships with Israel’s central ally.
Jordan relies heavily on U.S. support: Washington maintains a troop presence in-country; cooperates with Amman on border and maritime security, arms transfers, cybersecurity and counter-terrorism; and, under a seven-year memorandum of understanding signed in 2022, provides $1.2 billion in annual aid, including at least $350 million in foreign military financing each year. Taken together, the treaty framework and these financial and political ties make a draft aimed at a confrontation with Israel unlikely.
Despite the litany of factors pointing to the conclusion that the new conscription law specifically and the JAF more generally do not present a direct military threat to Israel, the Jordanian border remains a strategic focal point for Israeli defense.
“[Iranian Supreme Leader Ali] Khamenei has often said that Israel’s soft underbelly lies in the east,” Ayalon explained.
This tactical reality prompted the IDF to mobilize immense concentrations of troops to the Jordanian border during June’s “Operation Rising Lion” war with Iran in anticipation of potential cross-border attacks.
Additionally, the Jordanian border is a consistent theater of arms and drug smuggling operations. Historically, Jordan has served as a route for numerous cross-border infiltrations by terror groups, leading to thousands of Israeli casualties since the state’s founding. While the frequency of cross-border attacks has dropped significantly in recent years, three Israelis were killed and two were wounded in 2024 due to
cross-border terror attacks from Jordan.
“It is critical to strengthen our defenses on the Jordanian border. After the lessons of October 7, we cannot allow our communities and our borders to be exposed and unprotected, no matter what the assumed threat level is,” Ayalon said.
As of now, all 280 miles of the Jordanian border are manned by one IDF territorial division, the 96th “Gilead” Division. While significant swaths of the perimeter are protected by advanced security barriers hundreds of miles long, parts, particularly in the southern Arava district, have no fences or just minimal barbed wire to cover the border.
Dozens of Israeli communities are located within yards of the border with Jordan, with minimal IDF presence, forcing the residents to depend primarily on their communal defense squads for protection against theft, smuggling operations and terror infiltrations.
