ABSTRACT
During the 1950s the U.S. established an impressive set of military bases in Spain. Following a mutual defense agreement signed in 1953 that sealed a strategic alliance between the two countries, the formerly excluded from the community of western nations Francoist Spain became part of the new strategic board of the Cold War. The U.S. “Empire” expanded across the globe, encircling the USSR and its allies with a net of military installations in foreign “friend” countries. A distinct cartographic power that emerged after the extensive air bombing experiences of WWII based in aerial photography was deployed in the form of infrastructural control of the territory. This power had its material incarnation in Spain in the construction of four main bases (three for the USAF and one for the Navy) plus secondary facilities linked by a dense network of communications systems and an underground pipeline. This chapter examines the cartographic studies of the 1940s and the subsequent development of military infrastructure in the 1950s in order to trace the extent of global spatial domination established by the U.S. in Spain following the end of World War II.
