Japanese go on Kamikaze Naval Building Spree

[DaleCoz]

Right after World War I, the Japanese committed themselves to an economically suicidal course of capital warship building that would have given them an enormous fleet of battleships in the six to ten years before the program bankrupted the country.

The Washington Naval conference cooled off their ship-building ardor for a decade, but the Japanese military felt humiliated by being forced to accept a ratio of 5-5-3 compared to the US and Britain in terms of capital ships. Let's say that something derails Japanese agreement to the terms of the conference. Maybe they figure out that the US is reading their codes and react negatively to that. They go about building madly and the US and Britain are forced to follow suit.

What happens next?

[Emperor Norton I]

"Alright, now we have over 1 kagillion warships to invade the United States for the glory of the Empire!..........What?.......We can't afford any oil?...Oh God dammit!"

And that's how the Japanese electronics industry got started.

[nimbletoes]

OK, so we have the Pacific War possibly 10 years before OTL; ie Pacific War first, then invade Manchuria/China/rest of Asia to create the co-prosperity sphere.

[xchen08]

Realistically, I'd say there's a good chance nothing happens, since of the entire program, only the two Kagas would be complete by the time of the Great Kanto Earthquake. The Amagi would still be wrecked, only nearly complete, and with a billion then dollars in damages, 142,800 deaths, millions homeless, and massive destruction in major port cities from both the quake and subsequate tsunamis and firestorms, the building program is dead. The Japanese would end up crawling back to the negotiating table to keep from being buried in U.S. warships, which might actually be only a few more than OTL since Japan walking out doesn't prevent a formal or informal agreement to limit construction by the other powers if it is coupled with an alliance to watch Japan. It might just end up discrediting the militarists a bit, since instead of the 5:5:3 ratio being a humiliating slight by the Great Powers, it would be Japan begging for such a ratio.