Conference
Conference on Great Power Competition and Cooperation
May 2-3, 2025
Yale University
Friday, May 2
| 8:30-9:00 | Breakfast |
| 9:00-9:15 | Opening Remarks Andrew Coe (Vanderbilt) Alexandre Debs (Yale) James Fearon (Stanford) |
| 9:15-10:30 | Lessons from the Russia-Ukraine War How do we explain the origins and conduct of this war? Why did Putin invade instead of pursuing alternatives? Why have there been no serious negotiations for so long? Do we learn anything new and important about great power competition in contemporary conditions? About deterrence? Should offense-defense theory make a comeback? Fritz Bartel (Texas A&M) Susan Colburn (Duke) Michael Goldfien (Naval War College) Brad Smith (Vanderbilt) Chair: Mary Sarotte (Johns Hopkins SAIS) |
| 10:30-10:45 | Coffee Break |
| 10:45-12:00 | Intervention and Escalation in Ukraine What is driving US decisions about how far to go in assisting Ukraine, and Russian decisions about escalating the war? Why hasn’t Russia used WMD in Ukraine? What does this conflict tell us about nuclear deterrence, proxy conflicts, or third-party intervention generally? Malfrid Braut-Hegghammer (University of Oslo) Alexandra Chinchilla (Texas A&M) Matthew Fuhrmann (Texas A&M) Peter Schram (Vanderbilt) Chair: Susan Colburn (Duke) |
| 12:00-1:00 | Lunch |
| 1:00-2:30 | Competition between China and the US What are the prospects for a US-China war over Taiwan? Is northeast Asia destined for Chinese hegemony (and what would that mean)? How might high levels of economic interdependence matter for conflict prospects? How will the evolution of domestic politics in China matter for those prospects? To what extent are China’s interests, in East Asia or the rest of the world, different from those of the US? Van Jackson (Victoria University of Wellington) Michael Joseph (UCSD) Tyler Jost (Brown) Jessica Weiss (Johns Hopkins SAIS) Brandon Yoder (Australian National University) Chair: Michael Brenes (Yale) |
| 2:30-2:45 | Coffee Break |
| 2:45-4:15 | Arms Control among China, Russia, and the US What are the prospects for arms control among these three, whether limiting nuclear, conventional, or other weapons based on new technologies like AI? Is or will there be a “three body problem” if China deploys nuclear forces comparable to Russia or the US? Will the NPT remain viable? Why do some, but not all, eras of great power competition see serious efforts at arms control? James Cameron (University of Oslo) Andrew Coe (Vanderbilt) Fiona Cunningham (Pennsylvania) Jane Vaynman (Johns Hopkins SAIS) Tristan Volpe (Naval Postgraduate School) Chair: Daniel Mattingly (Yale) |
Saturday, May 3
| 8:30-9:00 | Breakfast |
| 9:00-10:30 | Economic Competition among China, Russia, and the US How will the nature of economic competition and international economic policy shape relations among these three? What are the effects of US sanctions on Russia? What determines the economic balance of power between China and the US, and what are the implications of this for a conflict over Taiwan? Stephanie Char (Columbia) Michael-David Mangini (Yale) Yu Mei (Rochester) Ketian (Vivian) Zhang (George Mason) Chair: Zhu Junwei (Grandview Institution) |
| 10:30-10:45 | Break |
| 10:45-12:15 | Research Needs and Publication Paths What are the priorities for research on great power competition and cooperation? What potential is there for collaboration between theoretical and empirical scholars? What are the most promising venues for policy-relevant work? How can empirical scholars most effectively review theoretical work, and vice versa? Malfrid Braut-Hegghammer (University of Oslo) James Fearon (Stanford) Andrew Kydd (Wisconsin) Roseanne McManus (Penn State) Chair: Alexandre Debs (Yale) |
| 12:15 | Lunch |