Naval Arms Race

As time moved into mid-March 1931, the Great Powers were all faced with a difficult choice: whether to renew the Naval Limitation Treaty.

It had to be admitted that the Naval Limitation Treaty had been quite helpful to world peace.

Under the restrictions of the Naval Limitation Treaty, every country had reduced its military spending by at least 30%, while also avoiding the competition caused by naval expansion.

The problem was that this so-called Naval Limitation Treaty was not equally fair to every country.

The naval ratios agreed upon at the time were 60:55:35:35:30:17.5.

After the demise of the United States, the restrictions on the United States' naval strength no longer applied to the small countries that had split away from it.

After all, those small countries were not large enough, and their economies could not possibly support huge fleets.

Thus, the Naval Limitation Treaty became a restriction on the several currently powerful countries—namely the United Kingdom, France, Australasia, the Japanese, and Italy.

The British people held the largest share, almost equal to the combined shares of the second and third countries, so they naturally had no intention of opposing the treaty.

But the other countries did not necessarily feel the same way.

France came first. After the demise of the United States, the French people had secured the position of the world's second power with Australasia's encouragement.

Regardless of what other countries thought, the French people firmly believed this claim, and from time to time even styled themselves the world's second-strongest power.

To the French people, being the world's second-strongest power meant that falling behind the United Kingdom in naval tonnage was acceptable, but having only a little more than half the British people's share was not.

The French people had no intention of tearing up the treaty, however.