The scenario asks how long the Washington system alone might have constrained the naval balance. The Imperial Japanese Navy might have feared that unrestricted American construction would pull the United States too far ahead by the late 1930s or early 1940s, encouraging a strike in 1937 or 1938. Japan's expansion in China and Fleet Problems that gathered the American fleet toward Hawaii and the central Pacific could have provided both a motive and a concentrated target. The Royal Navy might then have entered the conflict under more favourable conditions than in 1941, while Japanese assumptions of affinity with Britain as another island power went unreciprocated. This remains an explicit counterfactual about how treaty limits could shape perceptions of strategic timing, rather than a claim that an earlier war was inevitable.
Notable Point · 21:58-24:42
A counterfactual early Japanese-American war
The closing counterfactual argues that without the London Treaty's modifications to the Washington system, Japan might have felt compelled to strike the United States in 1937 or 1938.