Cyprus: an ‘unsinkable aircraft carrier’ no longer

Cyprus has long been regarded in strategic thinking as an “unsinkable aircraft carrier” in the Eastern Mediterranean. The phrase captures a hard reality. Today it carries a more troubling implication: growing vulnerability.

The British Sovereign Base Areas (SBAs) at Akrotiri and Dhekelia form part of the architecture of independence established by the 1960 Treaty of Establishment, which created the Republic of Cyprus (RoC). It defined the RoC’s territory as comprising the entire island...