Maybe a was not as clear as I could have been. I was mostly looking at it from the point of view or at least from the arguments that the US would use.
Yes, officially the Empire was at its height. But the empire of that time was NOT the same as the Empire of say the mid 1800s. It was large but it was no longer on a level so far above everyone else that it could expect to simply toss its weight around and get what it wanted. This is demonstrated by the simple fact that it was willing to enter negotiations at all. In the past at the height of its power it would simply have out build anyone and everyone else. It obviously recognized that this was no longer trully possible otherwise it would mot have been bothered to negotiate.
And the way it was ran and the way it had to be protected and such was noticeably different at that point than say 100 years before. Australia for example had specific laws regarding its citizens and fighting for GB. Hence the infamous situation back in Africa that was turned into the (questionable accurate) movie Breaker Morant.
Heck during WW2 Australia had its own military construction programs going. And economically Canada was fast becoming more tied to the US than GB. Windsor Canada for example was basically becoming a suburb of Detroit. So the “Empire” was fading And was frankly running on momentum. Canada and Australia were in many respects more like allies. And were more than capable of running and protecting themselves. Just as they are today.
India is an odd one in that they COULD have done more of there own thing thing they were allowed to do.
And in all cases these countries were heading towards nominal independence. it is not. Like they suddenly woke up one day in 1945 and decided it would be fun to break up the Empire. And most folks living in them did not consider themselves as “English”.
And I will point out I didn’t say GB couldn’t justify a large Navy, I just pointed out that SO COULD the US. And unlike GB which had over sea territories but was able to protect its core with one fleet. The US by definition HAD to keep two separate fleets just to protect the coasts of its CORE country. Great Britain could protect the Home Islands with a single “home fleet”
Note the point of these statements are part of “negotiations”. Where each side makes its claim as to why it should get X while the other guy gets only Y.
The stated premise of this topic is that somehow GB was allowed enough tonnage to match the US and Japan COMBINED. My point was what the US would argue, and what they would except.
And the US WOULD argue that they had every bit as big a need for a fleet as GB did if not a bigger need. Thus my point that Arguably you had GB and you had the over sea territories.
If you want to argue today that the US was willing back then to recognize that Canada and India and Australia and the British Virgin Islands were integral parts of “England/Great Britain”. Then consider what would happen during negotiations if GB said they were parking a large fleet in Canada and moving half the British army there. The US would have had a cow and you would have seen an instant Cold War and an arms race.
So there is part of the Empire and there is GB. And by post WW1 the Empire was on its way out.
Also Reality and what a country believes are only lousily related.
In a world we’re GB is powerful enough to get the US and Japan to accept them building a fleet that match both of theirs combined GB is so powerful that it does not need to negotiate the arms limitation treat to start with! It will simply out produce its opponent. Just as it had historically done up to WW1. But GB and the Empire was no longer able yo do that. In part because the cost of WW1, but also because others had increased in power while the Empire was slowly fading and its bigger/more important overseas territories were more and more looking inwards.
If anything the US was bargining from the position of strength. It had only been made stronger by WW1 and it was starting its phase that would see it as the dominant economic and manufacturing power of WW2. So it COULD afford the battleship race it just did want to.
But for various reasons posted elsewhere it would NEVER have agreed to a treaty that left it a distant 2nd to GB and gave Japan 66% of the USS entire navy. It would be literally impossible for the US to protect itself. Much less use it’s navy to influence anyone.
If it put enough in the Pacific then it had 33% in the Atlantic and GB is 3 times it’s Atlantic Navy assume it divides its fleet evenly and has 2 times or better assuming GB deploys to all its traditional locations.
And heaven help the US if GB and Japan renewed their friendship and both came after the US.
No this treaty the OP suggests makes ZERO sense as only way the US would except it is if it HAD to. And they only way it would have to is for GB to ne SO powerful that it could out build the US by more then 2 to one. And if GB could afford to do that then why bother with the treaty at all?
So A) this POD would take a radically different world where the US is a lot weaker and or GB is a LOT stronger and B) it would still need a reason to bother making the treaty.
Yes, officially the Empire was at its height. But the empire of that time was NOT the same as the Empire of say the mid 1800s. It was large but it was no longer on a level so far above everyone else that it could expect to simply toss its weight around and get what it wanted. This is demonstrated by the simple fact that it was willing to enter negotiations at all. In the past at the height of its power it would simply have out build anyone and everyone else. It obviously recognized that this was no longer trully possible otherwise it would mot have been bothered to negotiate.
And the way it was ran and the way it had to be protected and such was noticeably different at that point than say 100 years before. Australia for example had specific laws regarding its citizens and fighting for GB. Hence the infamous situation back in Africa that was turned into the (questionable accurate) movie Breaker Morant.
Heck during WW2 Australia had its own military construction programs going. And economically Canada was fast becoming more tied to the US than GB. Windsor Canada for example was basically becoming a suburb of Detroit. So the “Empire” was fading And was frankly running on momentum. Canada and Australia were in many respects more like allies. And were more than capable of running and protecting themselves. Just as they are today.
India is an odd one in that they COULD have done more of there own thing thing they were allowed to do.
And in all cases these countries were heading towards nominal independence. it is not. Like they suddenly woke up one day in 1945 and decided it would be fun to break up the Empire. And most folks living in them did not consider themselves as “English”.
And I will point out I didn’t say GB couldn’t justify a large Navy, I just pointed out that SO COULD the US. And unlike GB which had over sea territories but was able to protect its core with one fleet. The US by definition HAD to keep two separate fleets just to protect the coasts of its CORE country. Great Britain could protect the Home Islands with a single “home fleet”
Note the point of these statements are part of “negotiations”. Where each side makes its claim as to why it should get X while the other guy gets only Y.
The stated premise of this topic is that somehow GB was allowed enough tonnage to match the US and Japan COMBINED. My point was what the US would argue, and what they would except.
And the US WOULD argue that they had every bit as big a need for a fleet as GB did if not a bigger need. Thus my point that Arguably you had GB and you had the over sea territories.
If you want to argue today that the US was willing back then to recognize that Canada and India and Australia and the British Virgin Islands were integral parts of “England/Great Britain”. Then consider what would happen during negotiations if GB said they were parking a large fleet in Canada and moving half the British army there. The US would have had a cow and you would have seen an instant Cold War and an arms race.
So there is part of the Empire and there is GB. And by post WW1 the Empire was on its way out.
Also Reality and what a country believes are only lousily related.
In a world we’re GB is powerful enough to get the US and Japan to accept them building a fleet that match both of theirs combined GB is so powerful that it does not need to negotiate the arms limitation treat to start with! It will simply out produce its opponent. Just as it had historically done up to WW1. But GB and the Empire was no longer able yo do that. In part because the cost of WW1, but also because others had increased in power while the Empire was slowly fading and its bigger/more important overseas territories were more and more looking inwards.
If anything the US was bargining from the position of strength. It had only been made stronger by WW1 and it was starting its phase that would see it as the dominant economic and manufacturing power of WW2. So it COULD afford the battleship race it just did want to.
But for various reasons posted elsewhere it would NEVER have agreed to a treaty that left it a distant 2nd to GB and gave Japan 66% of the USS entire navy. It would be literally impossible for the US to protect itself. Much less use it’s navy to influence anyone.
If it put enough in the Pacific then it had 33% in the Atlantic and GB is 3 times it’s Atlantic Navy assume it divides its fleet evenly and has 2 times or better assuming GB deploys to all its traditional locations.
And heaven help the US if GB and Japan renewed their friendship and both came after the US.
No this treaty the OP suggests makes ZERO sense as only way the US would except it is if it HAD to. And they only way it would have to is for GB to ne SO powerful that it could out build the US by more then 2 to one. And if GB could afford to do that then why bother with the treaty at all?
So A) this POD would take a radically different world where the US is a lot weaker and or GB is a LOT stronger and B) it would still need a reason to bother making the treaty.
