Strategically located off the coast of the Carolinas, at the then limit of the range of Soviet submarine-launched nuclear missiles in the Atlantic, Bermuda is a self-governing British dependent territory which during the Cold War accommodated a SOSUS base at Tudor Hill and a U.S. Naval Air Station at Kindley Field. P-3 Orion
maritime patrol aircraft flown from Bermuda, capable of being armed with nuclear depth charges, extended the American ability to monitor the activities of, and challenge, potentially hostile submarines. Since the end of the Cold War, Bermuda’s strategic significance has diminished and the United States has withdrawn its military assets from the island.