There is one role in every big war that nobody volunteers for: the neighbour. Not the one attacking, not the one being attacked - the one over whose head the missiles fly on their way to somebody else. This season that role went to Jordan.

Iranian missile attacks on Jordan have intensified, and the country's air defence system intercepted three missiles. Earlier, an Iranian strike on an American base in Jordan killed two American soldiers and wounded dozens. The country has declared war on nobody. The country simply lies in the wrong place on the map.

Four thousand soldiers and one bill

Jordan hosts around 4,000 American troops on its territory. Under a 2022 memorandum of understanding, it receives between 1.45 and 1.65 billion dollars in American military and economic assistance each year.

That is the price of an alliance, written out in figures. And like every such price, it is not paid only in the budget. According to an Arab Barometer survey from 2026, just 12 percent of Jordanians view Trump's foreign policy positively. Twelve percent. The government is in one alliance, the population is clearly somewhere else entirely.

Half a country with a different history

More than half of Jordan's population is of Palestinian origin. The country is simultaneously under pressure over Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank and holds to its 1994 peace treaty with Israel - a treaty that has long been unpopular at home.

So the government has to keep the American alliance, not tear up the deal with Israel, not provoke the Iranians and not enrage its own citizens, all at once. Experts say Jordan has „very limited room for manoeuvre”. That is the diplomatic way of saying it has nowhere to go.

And all of it lands on a state that has plenty of problems even without missiles - high debt, unemployment and an economy that does not tolerate surprises.

A familiar scene

A small country, a large ally, somebody else's conflict passing overhead, and a population that chose neither. The Balkans know this scene by heart - no translation required.

When the big players sit down to make a deal, not one of them will be counting the three intercepted missiles over Amman. That is the bill left with the host - and that is exactly why it is worth writing down now, rather than after it is all over.