Britain emerged from the First World War with the world's strongest navy and one of its largest armies and air forces. Through 1926 it led the development of naval aviation and strategic bombing, while the Royal Navy remained larger than the U.S. Navy and equal to any two other fleets combined. The future of battleships, armoured forces, air support, and independent bombing was not yet self-evident because none of those systems had fully matured during the war. The services made real mistakes, including overvaluing cavalry and battleships and misjudging the balance between strategic bombing and support for land and sea forces. They nevertheless pursued new material and recognized that it would change operations. Ferris's comparison therefore replaces a simple story of British backwardness with a more useful question about how institutions make choices while technology is still immature.
Chapter · 5:01-7:09
Interwar modernization was a problem of immature technology
John Robert Ferris's Men, Money and Diplomacy complicates the claim that Britain's services simply failed to recognize aircraft, armor, and other modern weapons after 1918.