A large navy can pursue several doctrines at once

Matthew Seligmann's criticism of supposed pre-1914 naval revolutions warns against treating one strand of strategic debate as a complete replacement for every other. The Royal Navy's size and funding allowed several schools of thought to coexist in its plans and force structure. Germany faced sharper industrial tradeoffs between capital ships, cruisers, and smaller torpedo craft. Naval treaties gave Britain and the United States equal ceilings, but British spending kept the Royal Navy nearer its allowance while the US Senate often withheld the funding needed to make nominal parity real. Britain consequently remained the larger working fleet through much of the 1920s and 1930s. Fleet balance reflected institutional and political capacity rather than proving that one fashionable doctrine had displaced all its rivals.