For centuries, the Azores were not merely islands. They were crossroads.

Volcanic fragments suspended in the middle of the Atlantic, they emerged gradually as strategic anchors linking Europe, Africa, and the Americas — places where ships rested, empires refueled, navigators recalculated routes, and the ocean itself seemed briefly domesticated before opening again into uncertainty. Philosopher, poet, and essayist Roberto Cavaleiro reminds readers that for nearly five centuries the islands functioned as a safe harbor for Atlantic navigation, their strategic value inseparable from geography itself.

But the twentieth century transformed the Azores from maritime crossroads into aerial and military frontiers.

Beginning in May 1919, the Atlantic entered a new technological era when three American Navy Curtiss seaplanes used the harbor of Horta as a stopover during the first successful transatlantic flight to Great Britain. Soon afterward, Pan American Airways initiated commercial transatlantic operations using Sikorsky Clipper flying boats, further cementing the Azores as a strategic node between continents.

Yet it was the Second World War that irrevocably altered the geopolitical destiny of the archipelago.

Cavaleiro recounts how, by 1939, Adolf Hitler had already incorporated the Azores, Madeira, and the Canary Islands into broader Axis strategic calculations. Control of Atlantic islands meant control of refueling points, naval logistics, and anti-submarine operations essential for Germany’s U-boat campaign in the North Atlantic.

At stake was what military strategists called the “Azorean Gap” — a vulnerable section of the Atlantic where Allied anti-submarine air coverage remained dangerously limited. German submarines exploited this maritime void relentlessly, contributing to the sinking of more than a thousand merchant vessels from numerous nations.

Suddenly, these remote Atlantic islands became central to the survival of global supply routes.

Both United Kingdom and the United States prepared contingency plans to seize the Azores militarily should diplomatic negotiations fail. The prospect of Axis expansion through Spain and potential annexation of Portugal intensified Allied fears that the Atlantic islands might fall under hostile influence.

Caught between competing empires, Portuguese dictator António de Oliveira Salazar attempted to preserve official neutrality while navigating immense geopolitical pressure. Lisbon became a legendary city of espionage where British and German agents maneuvered continuously over tungsten exports, military logistics, and strategic access to Portuguese ports and airfields.

The Azores stood at the center of these silent negotiations.

By 1940, Portugal strengthened naval and military presence in the islands, extending runways at Lajes Air Base and preparing defensive infrastructure amid fears of invasion. But the decisive shift arrived through diplomacy rather than military conquest.

Under pressure from British Ambassador Sir Ronald Campbell and invoking the ancient Treaty of Windsor, Salazar eventually permitted Allied occupation of the islands without direct invasion.

The consequences transformed the Azores forever.

The airfield at Lajes expanded rapidly into a massive strategic military infrastructure capable of supporting heavy aircraft, troop transport, anti-submarine warfare, and transatlantic logistics. British and American forces soon exercised effective military control over the base, joining forces with RAF Coastal Command to hunt German submarines across the Atlantic.

The war altered not only military geography, but also the social and cultural life of the islands themselves.

For the people of Terceira Island in particular, the American presence introduced profound economic transformation and cultural change. English entered local vocabulary. Jazz, consumer goods, automobiles, aviation culture, new labor systems, and transatlantic migration opportunities reshaped island society in ways that would continue for generations.

The Azores became simultaneously more local and more global.

Even after the Second World War formally ended, the American military presence remained. In November 1944, the United States negotiated continued occupation rights for Lajes, eventually integrating the base into the emerging NATO strategic framework. Cavaleiro notes with curiosity that the United States never paid traditional rent for the base, since the arrangement was framed instead as a Portuguese contribution to NATO defense costs.

That historical ambiguity continues to echo today.

The contemporary geopolitical relevance of the Azores once again intensifies amid renewed Atlantic tensions, NATO restructuring, digital infrastructure expansion, and growing military competition across the North Atlantic. Recent statements by Azorean leaders advocating greater military investment, submarine cable infrastructure, and expanded transatlantic strategic partnerships reveal how deeply geography still shapes the destiny of the islands.

The Atlantic has changed technologically. But it has never ceased being strategic. And perhaps that is the deeper historical lesson emerging from Cavaleiro’s reflections.

The Azores survived centuries not because they possessed overwhelming political power or demographic scale, but because geography repeatedly forced empires to look toward them. The islands occupied that rare historical position where remoteness became centrality.

In moments of peace, the Azores appear peripheral. In moments of global crisis, they become indispensable. That paradox continues to define the archipelago even now.

The sea routes may have become air corridors, submarine fiber cables, satellite networks, and military logistics chains, yet the essential reality remains remarkably unchanged from the age of caravels and whaling ships: the Azores still sit at the hinge point of the Atlantic world.

Translated and adapted from Correio dos Açores.