Seçil Binboğa (University of Minnesota) will discuss how, in June 1952, the US Air Force Group in Ankara reported that thousands of potentially hostile aircraft were gathered along Turkey’s northern border, close to Soviet territory. The group’s chief warned Washington that a war involving Turkey could start as soon as April 1953. As air intelligence grew more alarming, US Ambassador George C. McGhee urged American planners to make better use of Turkey’s strategic location. These concerns helped set the stage for decades in which military projects—airfields, highways, and logistics hubs—reshaped Turkey’s landscape to support US Cold War goals. Central to this effort was a radar network called the Aircraft Control and Warning System. By studying its maps, we can see how US influence expanded through Turkey’s airspace between 1951 and 1954, crossing borders to counter the spread of communism. This story also shows how radar technology linked land and sky in new ways, helping both Turkish and American forces navigate Turkey’s shifting frontiers while allowing Turkish leaders to define the nation’s boundaries on the ground.
Seçil Binboğa is an Assistant Professor of Architectural History and Theory and serves as a Design Justice liaison at the College of Design at the University of Minnesota. Trained as an architect and architectural historian, Seçil teaches, researches, and writes about built and cultivated environments, focusing on the transnational histories and violent repercussions of military architectures, infrastructural power, rural development, and resource extraction. Her first book project, tentatively titled Architectures of Cold War Turkey: The Soil, The River, The Sea, examines the spatial foundations of U.S. imperialism in the Middle East and the Mediterranean.
