After two years of negotiations, the United Kingdom and the Republic of Mauritius announced an agreement on Oct. 3 that would grant the small Indian Ocean island nation sovereignty over the Chagos Archipelago, which includes the island of Diego Garcia. That island, the largest in the archipelago, is home to a major military base that supports both British and American naval and air operations.

The joint operational use of the island dates back to a 50-year agreement that Washington and London signed in 1966, which provided for a 20-year extension to 2036 as long as neither party gave notice of termination for two years beginning in December 2014. Needless to say, neither the U.S. nor the U.K. had any interest in terminating the agreement.

The new agreement between Britain and Mauritius brought an end to their decades-long dispute regarding sovereignty over the archipelago. Beginning in the 1980s, the Mauritians had staked a claim to the archipelago, arguing that Britain had illegally hived it off and renamed it the British Indian Ocean Territory when Mauritius became fully independent from Britain in 1968. A 2019 ruling by the International Court of Justice........

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