British finance and procurement shape the treaty bluff

Britain still has the industry to build capital ships after the First World War, and domestic construction would sustain employment and keep much of the spending inside the economy. The deeper exhaustion comes from the cumulative effects of the war, the Depression, and the Second World War. In this scenario the Admirals remain paused as bargaining assets instead of being cancelled as a goodwill gesture. British planners can accept matching headline capital-ship limits because they expect Congress to fund prestige units more readily than the cruisers, destroyers, and support forces that make a balanced fleet effective.