Outside the Washington treaty system

Several factors could explain the Soviet absence from the Washington Naval Conference: hostility toward a communist government, the poor condition of its fleet, and the complication of admitting Germany as well. British planners could still have found value in a Russian navy capable of occupying German and Japanese attention. A hypothetical treaty ratio equal to Japan's would have been spread across four separate Soviet fleets, making nominal parity less formidable than it appeared. More participants would also have made the treaty harder to negotiate and raised questions about South American naval powers. Although excluded, Soviet planners studied the agreement closely and treated its escalation clauses as signals of how rival construction might change.