Earlier this month, the Biden administration lifted the three-and-a-half-decade-old ban on the sale of U.S. arms to the Republic of Cyprus. With the ban in place, America had tied one arm behind its back in the Eastern Mediterranean. The United States already arms Israel and Greece but, until now, had not extended a similar hand to Cyprus, a critical partner in deterring Russian and Turkish aggression.
The increasingly contested region hosts massive offshore energy discoveries and sits at the intersection of the chaotic European, Middle Eastern and African theaters. With the Biden administration making the important decision to remove the arms ban for one year, Washington can bolster this vital region’s stability by providing the Republic of Cyprus with much-needed American-made arms…
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Vice Admiral Mark I. Fox, USN (ret.) served as deputy commander, United States Central Command and is a member of the Jewish Institute for National Security of America’s (JINSA) Eastern Mediterranean and Abraham Accords policy projects. Ari Cicurel is a senior policy analyst at JINSA.
This op-ed was made possible by the generous support of the Gettler Family Foundation and a portion of the research was conducted on the Benjamin Gettler International Policy Trip.