The naval treaty system restricted tonnage in pursuit of peace, yet it ultimately failed to preserve peace. Larger fleets might make aggression prohibitively costly and deter it. They might instead divide conflict into separate regional wars that could be contained before they combined. A third outcome is the historical global conflict in a different form. The counterfactual leaves the result open.
Notable Point · 1:59:42-2:00:57
Could stronger fleets deter or fragment a world war?
Larger fleets might deter dictators, keep regional wars from merging, or reproduce World War II in a different form.