Treaty withdrawal as an open warning

Japan announced in December 1934 that it would leave the naval-treaty system, with withdrawal taking effect in 1936. This was a public two-year warning rather than a surprise delivered at the last moment. The video places the decision beside Britain and, to a degree, the United States abandoning assumptions that a major war remained ten years away. In this reading, those choices show that several governments sensed a dangerous conflict approaching. Japan's withdrawal therefore mattered as permission for naval expansion and as evidence that its leaders were preparing for war.