Why the Royal Navy built the Hawkins class

If the German 6.8-inch cruiser threat was overstated, why was the Hawkins class built?

Because the Royal Navy needed new cruisers for global presence and fleet renewal, regardless of one specific threat.

Britain needed modern cruisers to replace worn-out hulls and maintain a presence on worldwide stations. That continuing requirement could justify ordering Hawkins without depending on one particular German design. Regular construction also kept yards employed and efficient, reducing the cost of placing further orders. Clarke recalls a disagreement with a colleague who treated such explanations as cover for responses to individual foreign threats. His argument is that the fleet had to prepare for many contingencies at once. The Russian armored-cruiser program is an example: it provided a convenient Treasury justification for British orders on a scale that, in this interpretation, exceeded the immediate threat. The size and timing of an order therefore matter when deciding whether a named foreign program fully explains it.