Stalin's four-fleet requirement makes twelve capital ships a plausible minimum: three ships are needed to keep one reliably available in each theater. The Baltic, Black Sea, Northern, and Pacific fleets therefore make Japan's existing nine-ship allowance insufficient for Soviet ambitions. Stalin could use the 1930 agreement to secure industrial support and then leave the treaty system in 1936. Excluding Moscow would still leave the other powers facing an unrestricted building program that could exceed the treaty's individual ship limits. Keeping the Soviet Union inside would at least place theoretical bounds on its expansion. A surviving agreement would thus need higher cumulative totals even if individual ship sizes stayed unchanged.
Notable Point · 41:36-44:16
Why four Soviet fleets require twelve capital ships
Three capital ships per fleet would give Stalin a twelve-ship minimum, forcing the other powers to choose between larger treaty totals and unrestricted Soviet construction.