Scheme X2 tests global trade defense

Scheme X2 imagined Britain and Japan at war while the United States remained neutral. Singapore had been relieved, Japanese battlecruisers still raided, and the main Japanese fleet waited in home waters for an advantageous decisive battle. Britain had interrupted Japanese trade toward the Dutch East Indies and Europe, while a separate squadron protected trade between the United States and Australia and the western approaches to the Panama Canal. Reports of Japanese raiders near the Caribbean and passing through the canal required decisions before enemy intentions were clear. The proposed solution detached a light cruiser and armed merchant cruisers into the Pacific and concentrated superior forces in the threatened area. These dispositions adapted Britain's 1914 experience against German commerce raiders to a war with Japan.