American deterrence and Germany's risk fleet sent different signals

The South Carolina class could impose a meaningful cost on an attacker without implying that the United States meant to defeat the Royal Navy. That earned respect while keeping American construction outside the same contest as Britain and Germany. Germany's program sent a different signal because its anti-British focus was widely understood. The Kaiser may have regarded the fleet as a claim to Germany's place in the world without grasping how Britain would interpret it. Tirpitz's risk theory created a strategic contradiction: a fleet too costly for Britain to attack was also too dangerous for Britain to leave undefeated. British sea power depended on retaining naval dominance, so an enemy fleet beyond defeat threatened the basis of that position. The same number of battleships could therefore carry very different political meanings.