Beyond Competition? A Chinese Perspective of the 1972 U.S.-Soviet Agreement on Prevention of Incidents on and over the High Seas

The Prevention of Incidents at Sea Agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union has often been regarded as a model for international military confidence-building measures. However, as U.S. government records about the negotiation demonstrate, the agreement was not solely about two nations joining together to deal with their common security dilemma and reduce unwanted incidents at sea. In fact, both the U.S. and Soviet governments cared more about how to reduce incidents in a way that best suited other strategic and tactical considerations. The result of the agreement did not alleviate tension between the two nations, but merely changed the form of confrontation.

Yuan Zhang is a lecturer from Institute for International Studies of Wuhan University in China, who earned his Ph.D. in the of history of international relations in 2010. He specialized in U.S. diplomatic and naval history in the 20th Century, with a strong interest in maritime confidence-building measures, postwar arrangement of world maritime order after WWII, Anglo-American naval relations and current U.S. maritime strategy. His related research programs and papers published include "Prevention of Incidents at Sea and Sino-U.S. Military Confidence Building," "U.S. Postwar Disposition of Micronesia and the Evolution of UN Trusteeship Mechanism."