WI: UK never signed Washington naval treaty?

the treaty was designed to limit the size of warships and place restrictions on weaponry. The US threatened to build up a navy to rival the Royal Navy if UK didn't sign the treaty. But what if the UK didn't? The Great Depression would have stopped any serious shipbuilding campaigns by the US.
 
the treaty was designed to limit the size of warships and place restrictions on weaponry. The US threatened to build up a navy to rival the Royal Navy if UK didn't sign the treaty. But what if the UK didn't? The Great Depression would have stopped any serious shipbuilding campaigns by the US.
America sells British debt. Britain finds it impossible to borrow. British shipbuilding ends by 1922.

maybe the us even tells Germany that they wont take actions to enforce reparations.
 
the treaty was designed to limit the size of warships and place restrictions on weaponry. The US threatened to build up a navy to rival the Royal Navy if UK didn't sign the treaty. But what if the UK didn't? The Great Depression would have stopped any serious shipbuilding campaigns by the US.
The US was already building that fleet, it had been ordered and paid for in 1916 and put off by WWI, otherwise it would have been a done deal by the signing of the Treaty. At the signing of the treaty the US had 9 Battleships and 6 Battlecruisers under construction, to be completed by the end of 1924 AFAIK, the UK had just ordered but not even started building 4 Battlecruisers. Assuming all ships were built, the US Navy would be somewhat larger, now Britain could theoretically build more ships, but so could the US, and the US had far more money to burn

The Great Depression wasn't until the last quarter of 1929, any ships ordered in FY 1924 or earlier should be built or almost done by then, WNT was Feb 1922
 
The US may follow through on its threat. Even with the Great Depression Americancan out build the RN if it feels like it. The issue isn't capacity, or even money. It's getting Congressional approval.

Japan is left weaker probably as it spends more earlier on its navy, leading to even earlier shortages of cash to buy supplies. Perhaps leading to an earlier version of the Pacific War.

Edit: If not Britain is probably going to have to go the US and propose a new naval treaty to contain competition. But this time it will come in with the smaller fleet and be rendered second place by any later treaty.
 
America sells British debt. Britain finds it impossible to borrow. British shipbuilding ends by 1922.

maybe the us even tells Germany that they wont take actions to enforce reparations.

You do not have a clue how bonds work do you? If you or I buy government bond we are perfectly able to sell it. We'll probably only get a discount price because it is likely some of the coupon payments have been made and besides the buyer is looking to make a profit but we can sell it. The new buyer then receives exactly the same conditions we did when we held the bond. We just have some money and no bond.

As to enforcement of the reparations payments France proved able to go about that on her own.

the treaty was designed to limit the size of warships and place restrictions on weaponry. The US threatened to build up a navy to rival the Royal Navy if UK didn't sign the treaty. But what if the UK didn't? The Great Depression would have stopped any serious shipbuilding campaigns by the US.

The Great Depression caught everyone by surprise and was not really a factor in anyone's naval calculations. Now the US Navy did have a problem of squeezed budgets and the fact that its next wave of construction in battleships and battlecruisers was going to look decidedly second rate compared to the G3s and N3s but as people have pointed out above the British had to worry about the next wave of construction after that. As people could also have mentioned the US also needed to worry about the Japanese...the Japanese also needed to take note of money worries of their own.

However the British and Americans actually had a fairly pragmatic view of what navies were for. Even the Japanese had a more sensible view of navalism than the Imperial German Navy and the German Navy League.

So the treaty basically recreated the situation that would have existed without it but on a budget. The USN and RN at the top, more or less on a level with the RN building more cruisers in practice. The IJN is able to defend Japanese interests in the Pacific but not go on a crazy conquering spree. The French able to keep the Italians in their place and so on.

We cannot be sure but I would strongly suspect that without the WNT the relative positions of the navies would be the same but all their governments would have spent a lot of money that could have been spent more sensibly.
 
Yes I do have an idea about how bonds work.

America held enough British debt at the time that if they sold a significant amount of it Britain would be unable to sell any of their own debt.

Just like today the Chinese government could if they wished cause an economic crisis in America by selling 1 trillion dollars of US bonds. Sure they would have to sell at a discount and USA is chinas biggest export partner so there is an element of MAD about it but China could crash USA at will. USA threatened Britain with something similar during the Suez crisis.

So to clarify my earlier post

America sells Billions of British government bonds.

British bond prices fall and yields rise

Britain is unable to borrow significant sums

Britain is forced to keep a balanced budget

Britain drops out of naval arms race
 

CalBear

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The US may follow through on its threat. Even with the Great Depression Americancan out build the RN if it feels like it. The issue isn't capacity, or even money. It's getting Congressional approval.

Japan is left weaker probably as it spends more earlier on its navy, leading to even earlier shortages of cash to buy supplies. Perhaps leading to an earlier version of the Pacific War.

Edit: If not Britain is probably going to have to go the US and propose a new naval treaty to contain competition. But this time it will come in with the smaller fleet and be rendered second place by any later treaty.
The U.S.will follow up on the BUILDING PROGRAM, it was anything but a threat. All 12 hulls, 6 BB & 6 BC, were already under construction, had in fact, already had the funding approved and in the pipeline. All 12 hulls would have been in commission by 1924 (U.S. yards were overall about 36-48 months from 1st steel to commissioning for ships of BB size), with a follow up class on the ways if the British and Japanese decided to keep pace.

The Depression will curtail the building program, but after 18-24 capital ship hulls are in commission, if not more.
 
Yes I do have an idea about how bonds work.

America held enough British debt at the time that if they sold a significant amount of it Britain would be unable to sell any of their own debt.

Just like today the Chinese government could if they wished cause an economic crisis in America by selling 1 trillion dollars of US bonds. Sure they would have to sell at a discount and USA is chinas biggest export partner so there is an element of MAD about it but China could crash USA at will. USA threatened Britain with something similar during the Suez crisis.

So to clarify my earlier post

America sells Billions of British government bonds.

British bond prices fall and yields rise

Britain is unable to borrow significant sums

Britain is forced to keep a balanced budget

Britain drops out of naval arms race

And how does that affect US bond yields?

Because the US then need to sell bonds that are competitive too. The problem with the idea of hoovering up all the capital in the market is that for it to succeed you have to hoover up all the capital in the market. However this does not entirely curtail the operations of governments across the globe who are all busy raising taxes as well. In fact it does not even stop them borrowing only the likely form of this borrowing under a complete capital hoover scenario is promissory notes rather than bonds.

I remain unconvinced.
 

hipper

Banned
The UK was running a primary buget Surplus in the 1920's so no need no issue new debt.
In fact if the US lowers the value of UK debit then they are able to pay back the debt cheaply.
 
the treaty was designed to limit the size of warships and place restrictions on weaponry. The US threatened to build up a navy to rival the Royal Navy if UK didn't sign the treaty. But what if the UK didn't?
It's not like the poms were planning a particularly large building programme post-WW1 anyway. Hell, it looks like they were fundamentally unconcerned about contesting the Yanks' build-up! I mean post-war it was a matter of finishing Hood and then taking their time laying down the first of four G3s with a possible follow on of four N3s. Meanwhile ALL of their 12in gunned and several 13.5in gunned Battleships (plus two of the four surviving 12in gunned Battlecruisers) had gone into reserve in 1919 with seven of the 12-inchers (five BBs and two BCs) plus Hood's three uncompleted half-sisters going to the scrapheap (and Canada sold to Chile... again) before the Washington treaty was signed (actually, before negotiations had even concluded...).

That's eight ships gone by the end of 1921 with another six likely to be scrapped in the very near future in exchange for one new vessel in service in 1920 and four to eight planned to enter service between 1924ish and 1930ish... by which time the first 13.5inchers will likely also be on their way out.
 
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