Japan's risk fleet grew from fear of foreign coercion

Japanese planners had watched foreign powers damage or subordinate states around them and had experienced coercive visits by American and British warships. Their fleet policy therefore aimed to make conquest of Japan too costly for an attacker. Repeated American-Japanese diplomatic miscommunication compounded the danger, including language that could make an envoy sound more threatening than intended. That background distinguishes a defensive attempt to preserve sovereignty from Tirpitz's later effort to use naval construction as leverage over Britain.