A. V. Alexander and Arthur Henderson were central to winning French and Italian participation. Alexander later returned as First Lord of the Admiralty during most of the Second World War, when the fleet confronted shortages shaped partly by the earlier restraint he had supported. The absence of Germany, the Soviet Union, and Sweden challenges the idea that the treaty was a comprehensive peace instrument. All three possessed, or could assemble, the industrial and technical base for capital-ship construction, yet none was bound by the settlement. China receives little weight in this comparison, while Brazil, Chile, and Argentina faced funding problems. Spain and the Netherlands depended on foreign help for battleship construction.
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A. V. Alexander and the powers missing from disarmament
The First Lord who helped secure the treaty later led the Royal Navy in wartime, while Germany, the Soviet Union, and Sweden remained outside its system.