Washington Naval treaties

did Japan gain anything by signing the treaties?....did it keep her ship numbers closer to England and the US, by limiting those 2 countries?

 

Of course Japan gained by signing the treaty. It prevented would would have been a ruinous, for her, battleship race with the Americans and British...A race in which she would have finished a poor third. Her national budget just could not compete with the Anglo-Americans. Further, given her later reliance on oil imports, a larger fleet only would have made her more beholden to said imports. Tomosaburo Kato, leader of the Treaty faction, saw this, thus he fought long and hard to bring the other opposing Japanese members to face this hard truth. Although Tomosaburo managed to bring the rest in line, the Fleet faction, headed by Kanji Kato, never truly accepted the terms of the Treaty, and with Tomosaburo's early passing in 1923, the Treaty faction began a slow and steady decline.

 

the larger fleet-oil needs larger is a very good point.....I would've never thought of that...I kind of thought that this was the case.....why did the US do it then?? for morals?

 

No, from the public, it was the beginning of isolationism. The US had just fought a war the public didn't want to fight, anti-war sentiment was very strong, and they did not want to fight another war in the future. From the government view it was pure politics, with a slight dash of defense. If you recall, it was Woodrow Wilson's drive that began the Naval Act of 1916 that looked to create a large American navy second to none. With the election of Warren Harding, the Republicans began systematically paring down the US Navy. The dash of defense, was Article 19, which provided to maintain the status quo in the Pacific, and prevented the building of bases and fortifications there. This served to keep the sea lanes and lines of communication from America to the Philippines free from any Japanese interference.

 

you make it sound so clear and logical....much thanks.....seems like we went the other way after WW2....

 

Even for the US, an arms race would've been horribly expensive. Even if the US could afford more, it doesn't mean that the public sees such an expense as justifiable in the context of other needs.

 

An arms race can be pretty pointless; indeed if someone did a detailed study it might show that they were more often pointless than not. Suppose for example two or more rival nations each have ten battleships, and they build frantically until they each have twenty. The relative position is no different from before, none of them are any more secure, and they'll have to keep building just to stay where they are. The race itself is likely to exacerbate tensions, like the dreadnought race between Britain and Germany or the arms buildups in all the major European powers in the years leading up to WWI.

The treaty relationship between the US and Japanese fleets was probably not far off the outcome of continued unregulated construction. The Japanese had their 8-8 Plan, meaning 8 battleships and 8 battle cruisers, but it could just as easily be called 8 on the ways and 8 on paper The US had 16 corresponding ships all actually under construction and would no doubt have matched and outmatched Japan's program. We also had a prototype 18" gun if those were needed to match Japanese or British ships.

Britain was in a curious position. She had the largest existing navy, but her early dreadnoughts were seriously outclassed by the new and planned Japanese and American ships. Britain also had some very advanced design concepts*, but little prospect of building them in the aftermath of WWI, let alone matching the programs of her rivals.

So each of the powers had reasons to try to contain the arms race.

* the one product of these was the Nelson class, basically a shortened 23-knot battleship version of the planned 30-knot G3 battle cruiser. One of several nicknames for them was the "Cherry Tree" ships, since they had been "cut down by Washington".

 

good for the economy?

 

Our economy seemed to be doing all right during the "Roaring Twenties". Naval construction in the 30s helped pull us out of the Depression, but it was not just for economic reasons; by then there was a legitimate need for new construction of the latest ship types like aircraft carriers and modern destroyers and submarines.

 

Takao and Carronade. Very enlightening and informed explanations. Thank you both for the posts.

 

For the relative few who would be involved in the construction of the new fleet. However, everyone would be paying higher taxes to pay for the new fleet. Not a good selling point to an increasingly isolationist public, and one which the Republicans gladly pointed out. Wilson, for better or worse, did too, for it was the "stick" to generate support for joining, the "carrot", the League of Nations. Wilson stated that it was the League and disarmament, or a new fleet and higher taxes. In the end, he got neither the League of Nations, nor the new fleet, for in the beginning of October, 1919, he suffered a crippling stroke, which left him unable to negotiate for either one. Still, he stuck to his guns, and refused a Republican-lead compromise to join the League of Nations with reservations, believing that he could later change the minds of his opponents. Unfortunately for Wilson, his health issues worsened with time, leaving him incapable of negotiating with the Congress to join the League without reservations.

Our economy was not all that great in the beginning, suffering a recession in 1918-19, and a recession/depression in 1920-21. Once we got past that hump, then the 20's started roaring.

 

When discussing arms races it's also worth remembering that there are essentially two types. Stable and unstable. The latter is defined by the growth in spending and almost always ends in war (all known cases have).

As for impacts on the economy military spending can be very beneficial if the effort wouldn't be spent elsewhere or there are big shortages of cash. In the 20's neither of these were the case. Everyone had places they could better spend their resources so the treaty was pretty much a win win situation. My impression is that it wasn't so much the treaty as the ratios that some of the Japanese resentd. Especially since it made it clear on paper that they weren't one of the top 2.

 

especially the nationalists<>resented it

 

The Japanese were not expecting to be #1 or #2. However, The Imperial Japanese Navy had decided that Japan required a fleet 70% that of the enemy. The 5-5-3 ratio left them only at 60%, 10% below their estimated need for survival. This, coupled with the Washington Naval Treaty doing away with their much anticipated 8-8 fleet, caused the IJN to split into the Treaty Faction and the Fleet Faction

 

so, why 70%? Did they think the US would definitely be in a 2 ocean war??...I would think they would want 120%!....they did put the 18 inchers in, so they thought that would even it up....? or Japanese ''spirit'' would..?..also, I thought their plan was to cut the US fleet down, as it moved across the Pacific

 

The United States did not have to be in a two-front war...Her national interests required a major naval presence in both the Pacific and Atlantic. Therefore, irregardless of times of peace or war, the United States would need to keep at least two main fleets, one in the Atlantic and one in the Pacific. The Japanese expected that the Americans would not wait for both fleets to form up before attacking. Thus they would only have to fight one fleet at a time. Besides building a fleet that was 120% of the American fleet would be an economic impossibility for Japan, not only in building such a fleet, but also in maintaining one.

Yes, the Japanese had moved to the 18.1-inch guns back in the late nineteen-teens, and it was intended to be the main armament of the unnamed No.13 class battleship that was to have been laid down in 1922, and completed by 1927. Japan's ratification of the Washington Naval Treaty led to their cancellation before any of the four intended battleships could be laid down.

 

120%..what was I thinking!...just putting up numbers.....

 

My point, which wasn't made very clearly, was that there is a difference in understanding that you are not in the top rank and in having an official document that pretty clearly states that. Of course there's a real question as well as to whether their pre treaty plans were practicle. I also hadn't realized that they were as close to the goal they desired as they were.

 

I think you may have confused The Washington Naval Treaty with the failure of the Japanese to have their racial equality amendment Article 21 of the League of Nations Covenant passed. That really upset the Japanese people as a whole, and did much to stir up their hatred for America, since it was President Woodrow Wilson who seemingly arbitrarily required that a unanimous vote was necessary for it's inclusion.

The 8-8 Fleet was a real possibility and the Japanese were well on the way to making it a reality(although at quite some expense). The question of making Japanese pre-Treaty plans a reality arises from the inclusion of the superbattleships of the Kii Class(4 ships) and the unnamed No.13 class(4 ships), for an 8-8-8 Fleet. It is usually presumed that Japan did not have the financial wherewithal to complete some or all of these additional battleships.

 

Of course they hadn't realized what would happen economically in the 30's but I'd think trying to keep that many ships operational would have been financially very difficult during that period. Building weapons is often not the most expensive component of their life cycle cost.