The economic and security cases depend on cumulative effects. Investment produces facilities, skills, and assets that make future investment easier, while postponement leaves more to build when war is already near. The counterfactual also suggests that infrastructure and defence spending could soften the Great Depression by keeping employment and money circulating through the British and imperial economy. The proposal is therefore about starting the next crisis from a larger industrial and logistical base, as well as buying more ships.
Notable Point · 1:17:09-1:21:38
Why early investment compounds
Earlier infrastructure spending could reduce emergency rearmament costs and leave Britain with more industrial capacity and strategic options when another war approached.