Naval Historywith Dr. Alex

Q&A · 1:27:29-1:27:36

Did Britain and America share treaty definitions?

Treaty enforcement required Britain and the United States to use agreed definitions even when their individual declarations were imperfect.

Naval TreatiesTreaty TonnageWarship DisplacementWashington Naval Treaty
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Question

Did Britain and the United States agree how treaty weight and tonnage were defined?

Short answer

Yes; the treaty required common definitions even though the figures reported within them could still be imperfect.

Notes

Britain and the United States had to agree the definitions used by the treaty. Shared categories were necessary before the signatories could compare tonnage and apply limits. Agreement on definitions did not guarantee that every declared figure was a perfect account of actual displacement. It did provide the common legal vocabulary on which the naval limitation system operated.