During its seventy-fifth annual summit, in July of this year, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) announced plans to open its first Middle East liaison office in Jordan. Amid heightened uncertainty in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, NATO’s decision to open this office cements Western powers’ vested interests in the Middle East and challenges speculation surrounding their declining security engagement with the region. However, NATO’s ability to expand its operations in the region will be limited as a result of major Western powers’ increasing pivot toward containing China’s and Russia’s growing influence in the Middle East and beyond.
At last year’s summit, the organization expressed interest in establishing a liaison office in Amman as part of plans to enhance existing strategic ties with Jordan and strengthen defense relations with the region at large. Within a year, concrete efforts to establish the regional office have been set in motion. A job posting for the head of the NATO liaison office—issued almost immediately after the summit—indicates that the role will likely be filled in the coming months. Such expedited efforts to establish the office may be linked to the war on Gaza’s impact on regional security and great power competition. In particular, NATO’s rapid progress may be a reflection of Western powers’ attempts to capitalize on their security leverage in the region to counter China’s and Russia’s growing influence.
The rise of China and Russia’s regional influence can be attributed to MENA states’ efforts to diversify their alliances beyond traditional Western partners. Recently, this pursuit has intensified due to the destabilizing effects of the West’s continued support for Israel on the broader region. The 2024 Beijing Declaration, in which Palestinian leaders agreed in principle to the formation of a national unity government, is a notable example of China’s expanding diplomatic engagement with the Middle East. However, despite China’s strengthening diplomatic relations, Beijing’s security ties with MENA countries remain minimal. This gap in MENA-China relations reinforces the role of Western powers as the region’s primary security partners.
Although Western powers are seeking to play a broader and more robust role in regional security—vis-à-vis multilateral coordination through a regional NATO office—conflicts in Europe’s neighborhoods, particularly Russia’s expanding influence and war on Ukraine, will hamper their capacity to do so. This capacity is also limited due to the United States’ increasing focus on the Indo-Pacific, particularly with the launch of Washington’s Indo-Pacific strategy in 2022.
Doubt already looms as to the effectiveness and sustainability of Western powers’ security engagement with the region. A number of U.S. officials have expressed concern over maintaining the extensive deployment of arms and financial resources in regional security operations, stressing that the costs incurred will significantly impact the future of the United States’ strategic direction and interests. NATO powers can therefore no longer afford to shoulder these responsibilities alone. Consequently, they are now looking for regional powers and allies that can play a more pronounced role.
For instance, the United States has called for the creation of a joint Arab security coalition to securitize postwar Gaza. If this force materializes, NATO powers will likely utilize the Jordan office to bolster the coordination of a regional security apparatus. Jordan’s interception of Iranian missiles during Tehran’s counterattack on Israel in April underscored the increasing importance of regional powers in advancing—and protecting—Western powers’ security interests.
Growing multipolarity and the interaction of major global powers, evolving alliances, and a complex geopolitical landscape will continue to shape security dynamics in the MENA region. From China’s brokering of the 2023 Iran-Saudi agreement to the gridlocked U.S.-Saudi Arabia security pact, the MENA region’s security framework is marked by global powers’ quest to establish regional influence. The establishment of a NATO presence in Jordan only asserts Western powers’ intensifying efforts to maintain their position at the head of the pack of great powers vying for leverage in the region’s security architecture; but the ability of a regional office to establish meaningful engagement will be tested by various security challenges in neighboring regions that take precedence over the Middle East.
