Britain may have supported American efforts to restrict Japanese carrier construction while planning to apply other treaty clauses pragmatically. A foreign warship still in a British yard provides the hypothetical example: if war began before delivery, Britain might have retained it. This is a speculative contingency rather than a claim that seizure was certain. Peacetime arms-control commitments could coexist with emergency fleet-acquisition planning.
Notable Point · 4:35-5:29
Treaty rules and wartime contingency planning
British support for restricting Japanese construction could coexist with plans to interpret acquisition rules pragmatically if war intervened.