French treaty parity and the cost of global presence

French acceptance of parity with Italy shows how geography changes the meaning of naval equality. Italy could concentrate most of its imperial and naval concerns around the Mediterranean, while France needed ships there and across a global empire. France could match Italy or maintain worldwide presence, but struggled to do both without close British cooperation. British planning therefore treated the French fleet as the Mediterranean counterweight to Italy. An illustrative 1942 British allocation placed roughly six battleships in home waters, four in the Mediterranean, and eleven in the Far East. The comparison returns to Japan by showing that deterrence combines training, construction, messaging, and deployable presence. A capital-ship total tells only part of the story.