Naval arms races and the German army's budget ceiling

The comparison distinguishes the quantitative naval race between Britain and Germany from a qualitative race involving Britain, the United States, Italy, Japan, and to an extent Austria-Hungary. Russia's participation was constrained by inadequate building infrastructure, while France was still recovering from Jeune Ecole policy. Germany had the potential to pursue more advanced designs, but combining greater numbers with continually rising quality would drive costs upward. In this interpretation, the German army imposed the decisive domestic budget ceiling: naval expansion could continue only while it avoided taking too much funding from the army.