Naval treaties redirect competition toward helicopters

Arms-control rules can displace pressure from a restricted category into an unrestricted one. The Washington treaty checked capital-ship construction but left cruiser building as a new outlet until the London treaty attempted to close that gap. Helicopters would offer another unregulated field in which naval competition, technical prestige, and institutional anxiety could collect. The counterfactual hinge is to move an early rotary-wing demonstration from the Army's McCook Field to the Navy's Chambers Field, where William Moffett sees it. Moffett's political skill and commitment to naval aviation could then turn a fragile experiment into a funded program that Britain and Japan would feel compelled to answer.