Late interwar naval limits were vulnerable because they contained no practical punishment for excess displacement. A rival could threaten war or start a matching building programme, but neither response immediately removed the offending ship. Discretion still mattered because concealment delayed political reaction and industrial countermeasures. Accounting devices such as treating water as armor made the nominal rules even easier to bend without openly abandoning the treaty system.
Notable Point · 1:04:56-1:05:58
Why interwar naval treaty cheating was hard to punish
Without automatic penalties, a treaty violation forced rivals either to accept it, match it, or contemplate a war they did not want.