An audience comment argues that the Washington and London systems concentrated on numerical limits while neglecting how unequal ratios would be understood in Japan. The status problem mattered, and the negotiations also involved every power trying to play others against one another, including Japanese efforts to use American and British differences. The treaties were political bargains interpreted through prestige and alliance competition as well as tonnage formulas. This helps explain how a technically effective limit could still carry destabilizing cultural consequences.
Notable Point · 1:12:24-1:12:42
Naval treaty ratios carried political and cultural costs
The treaty system constrained ship numbers but also made relative status part of the bargain, contributing to Japanese resentment.