The argument rejects the claim that interwar planners failed to imagine the danger of air power. The treaty's permission to improve protection against aircraft and submarines shows that the threat was already visible in 1920. What planners could not know was whether the enabling inventions would arrive in a few years or take decades. That timetable depended on power density, especially the horsepower available per ton, a constraint shared by aircraft and warships.
Notable Point · 29:18-30:04
Air power was anticipated, but its timetable was uncertain
Naval planners understood aviation's potential in 1920; the uncertainty was how quickly engines and other enabling technologies would make it decisive.