Britain's changing threats in the 1930s

Britain's changing priorities in the 1930s show how quickly a country's place in strategic planning can alter. At the decade's start, Weimar Germany attracted little concern as a military threat compared with Japan, Italy, and the Soviet Union. Germany became a major danger within less than ten years. Even in January 1939, British and Japanese warships were pointing guns at one another at close range in a Chinese harbour, illustrating the immediate pressures on naval planners. For a twenty-year horizon, regional instability and national interests provide a more durable starting point than a fixed list of hostile governments.