On 03Oct2020 0536, Bruce Johnson wrote:
>
>
>> On Oct 1, 2020, at 2:03 PM, Thomas RUX <xxxxxx@comcast.net
>> <mailto:xxxxxx@comcast.net>> wrote:
>>
>> Hi Phil,
>>> On 10/01/2020 1:44 PM Phil Pugliese - philpugliese at yahoo.com
>>> <http://yahoo.com> (via tml list) <xxxxxx@simplelists.com
>>> <mailto:xxxxxx@simplelists.com>> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> My experience is that a 'common sense' approach to military budgets
>>> & spending doesn't work so well.
>>> After all, wasn't that attempted with the various Naval Treaties of
>>> the 20's & 30's?
>>> Didn't really work so well.
>> My recollection from my world history college course was that the
>> treaties were to ensure that major naval powers stayed the top dogs
>> and to keep the smaller and or WW I losers from being able to
>> challenge them in another war. Of course not having to build a lot of
>> ships also reduced budgets, which unfortunately as you mentioned
>> really did not work out.
>>
>> Tom Rux
>>
>
> Yes, the main reason for the Naval Treaties was to freeze the naval
> supremacy status quo post WWI, much like the Treaty of Versailles
> attempted to freeze the Military status quo in Europe. Reducing Naval
> budgets was not really anything more than a side effect as it was
> essentially a series of disarmament treaties.
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Naval_Treaty

That depends on which nation you were - for the US the Washington Naval
Treaty it was a way of keeping a lid on Japan and breaking the
Anglo-Japanese Alliance. For the UK it was a way of avoiding a naval
arms race with the US which the UK really didn't want to have to pay for
- the budgetary savings were a really big deal for the UK governments of
the day. The later London treaties were more about disarmament, locking
in the effects of the Washington Treaty, and plugging loopholes, though
the UK and US governments also very much liked the way they let them not
spend money on their navies. For France and Italy they were a way of not
going bankrupt in an arms race with each other. For Japan they were a
way of not getting completely out-built by the US - they negotiated a
ratio that they felt would allow them to win a war with the US in the
Western Pacific.

The UK government told their military that they were to plan on the
assumption that the government would give them five years notice of a
major war. The US government budgeted so little money for operational
expenses until the very late 30s that the Navy did almost no training
outside harbour. That lack of money was one (of many) reasons why US
torpedoes were so bad entering WWII - testing had involved only a few
test torpedoes, and no actual fully operational ones.

--

Rupert Boleyn <xxxxxx@gmail.com>