Why automatic escalation has a practical ceiling

Would a treaty with scheduled annual increases in ship size and gun calibre be more realistic?

It is an interesting idea, but it rapidly reaches the practical ceiling around 18-inch guns and very large displacements.

A proposal for predictable annual increases in displacement and gun calibre quickly reaches a practical ceiling. Starting from a 16-inch limit and adding a quarter inch each year reaches 18 inches in only eight years, while a 30,000-ton starting point rises to about 38,000 tons. Designers and governments would anticipate that endpoint rather than treating each annual step as an independent surprise. Once the system reaches the practical gun ceiling, continued automatic escalation offers little useful naval value.