About the event: What are the prospects for arms control agreements between the United States and China? Conventional wisdom is pessimistic, pointing to recent tensions between great powers. Yet we still lack a comprehensive review of the history of arms control negotiations, placing the current context in perspective. This presentation presents some initial findings of a data collection effort, conducted jointly with Matthew Fuhrmann (Texas A&M). We identify close to 200 arms control agreements from 1816 to 2017. We conclude that arms control agreements have served very different purposes. Some have been symmetric, imposing restrictions on all parties involved, while others have been asymmetric, cementing a balance of power after a global shock or excluding third parties from a technology. These agreements follow different logics and symmetric agreements, which the United States would be pursuing with China, have been rare. Even setting aside recent tensions, arms control agreements would be challenging.

About the speaker: Alexandre Debs is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at Yale University, where he is also the Faculty Director of the Nuclear Security Program at the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies.

Alexandre’s research focuses on the causes of war and nuclear politics. His work has appeared in top political science and international relations journals. He is the author of the book Nuclear Politics: The Strategic Causes of Proliferation (with Nuno Monteiro), published by Cambridge University Press in 2017. Since June 2024, Alexandre has been serving as Associate Editor of the American Political Science Review.

Alexandre received a Ph.D. degree in Economics from M.I.T., an M.Phil. in Economic and Social History from the University of Oxford as a Rhodes scholar, and a B.Sc. in Economics and Mathematics from Universite de Montreal.

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