A decisive Jutland validates the big-gun race

A German collapse caused by a decisive fleet battle would make the battleship and its heavy guns appear to have delivered strategic victory. Governments would be less inclined to question continued capital-ship construction, especially without an American-led Washington conference. Each new battle fleet would then become both the lesson of the war and the starting point for another qualitative race. This compounding divergence explains why an early end to the conflict becomes too detached from the historical reference points needed for a constrained counterfactual.