The Washington Naval Treaty of 1922

September meeting of the Association for Rational Thought.
link:
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/88689259309?pwd=VHegY8x0jCjtDPFP4bYfrBaAQgR2zB.1

The Washington Naval Treaty of 1922: An early Attempt at Arms Control, and its Consequences.

Speaker: David Siegel, Ph.D.

The Washington Naval Conference opened on Nov. 12, 1921. American Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes welcomed the delegates, representing the major Powers of a world seemingly intent on a ruinous naval arms race, to what some thought would be another half-hearted opportunity to limit naval armaments. In his opening address, Hughes stated that “The way to disarm is to disarm.” He said that he and President Harding had some proposals. The room went silent. What Hughes said next, by in-person accounts, electrified the entire room, and beyond it, the entire world. If the other Powers agreed to act in concert, Hughes said, the US was prepared to immediately scrap 15 old battleships and to cancel construction of 15 new capital ships, some of them 85 - 90 percent complete. In all, the 30 US capital ships to be scrapped totaled 845,000 tons in displacement. The audience was stunned. The ships on the list constituted two-thirds of the projected American battleship fleet. But he wasn’t done. He called for a ten-year halt to the construction of battleships and battlecruisers, and a collective agreement of the Powers to scrap or forego a total of 66 capital ships; some 1.9 million tons of battleships. Hughes had, at one blow, made more battleships disappear then any Admiral, living or dead, had ever “sunk.” And, apparently, he and the US Administration meant to follow through.

The resulting Treaty had several unanticipated or unfortunate drawbacks, from a post-WWII point of view, which handicapped the Allies in the naval campaigns of WWII, as well as being of a non-Millennial origin. The story of the Conference (what brought it about, how it evolved, and the consequences) is an important aspect of
History, and teaches us important lessons about Arms Control in the present day.

My goal is to outline the context and consequences for about an hour, leaving an hour for discussion. For those seeking background, I recommend reading one of the following:

Robert Gordon Kaufman, “Arms Control During the Pre-Nuclear Era.” Columbia Univ. Press, NY, USA, c. 1990

John Jordan, “Warships After Washington,” Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, MD, USA, c. 2011

Or the more general book by Ronald Spector, “Eagle Against the Sun: the American War With Japan,” Free Press, N.Y., USA, c. 1985; which I think is an one of the best one-volume histories of the War in the Pacific.