War with the United States was a contingency British planners had to consider, though it was an unlikely sequel to postwar naval competition. Sustaining an American building race would have required consistent congressional funding and a much larger construction program. The United States also had enormous Atlantic and Pacific coastlines that made a strong fleet strategically understandable to British policymakers. Germany's navy was concentrated much closer to Britain and had been built amid an explicit deterioration from ally to possible enemy, so the two rivalries carried different strategic meanings.
Notable Point · 6:48-9:24
Why an Anglo-American naval race did not mirror Germany's
Geography and political intent made American fleet growth less threatening to Britain than the pre-1914 German challenge.