A proposed way to reduce the Anglo-French fleet crisis was to agree beforehand what each navy would do if its country fell. Such an agreement would cover British defeat as well as French defeat. Concentrating on an immediate threat could leave that possibility outside routine planning because France was still an ally expected to survive. Yet a low-probability collapse would create an immediate and severe problem because of the fleet's power. The argument for contingency planning rests on the scale of those consequences even when defeat seems unlikely.
Notable Point · 26:26-28:29
Fleet agreements need contingencies for an ally's defeat
Advance agreements about either ally's defeat could have reduced uncertainty over the surviving fleets.