Cruiser numbers beneath capital-ship parity

The headline agreement covered capital-ship and carrier tonnage while leaving room for differences in cruisers and destroyers. The British expectation described here was that Congress would not fund enough smaller ships to match a larger British and dominion programme. A hypothetical war would also require the United States to protect shipping along both coasts and its maritime trade routes. Before the later interstate highway network, railways and coastal shipping both mattered to domestic movement of goods. A few raiding cruisers could therefore occupy a larger defending force, allowing the side with more cruisers to concentrate elsewhere with its battle fleet. The discussion treats Anglo-American war as unlikely and uses the scenario to explain why equal capital-ship tonnage did not imply identical operational options.