Failed efforts to limit air power illustrate the wider problem of treaty definitions. A civilian airliner could be designed for rapid conversion into a bomber, making a simple ban on bomber aircraft easy to evade. Eliminating bombers would also undermine the rationale for fighters, while retaining ground-attack aircraft would recreate much of the prohibited capability under another name. The example clarifies why naval treaties relied on measurable categories such as gun calibre and displacement yet still produced complicated rules and strategically awkward ship designs.
Notable Point · 39:18-41:38
Air-power treaties reveal the limits of arms control
The difficulty of defining and banning bombers shows why interwar arms-control agreements became blunt instruments, a problem that helps explain the compromises and loopholes surrounding naval treaties.