War memory and the assumptions behind arms control

The London treaties tried to preserve peace by bureaucratising naval preparation. That approach assumed the First World War had traumatised every state in comparable ways and given each the same incentive to avoid another conflict. Russian emphasis on the Great Patriotic War differs from British or American emphasis on the Battle of the Atlantic, while Chinese memory centres on fighting Japan. The Battle of the Atlantic also appears as an enabling campaign because supplies had to cross the ocean to Britain and continue toward Russia through the Arctic convoys. National experience therefore produces different historical priorities. Arms control becomes fragile when it assumes every signatory reads danger, sacrifice, and restraint through the same historical lens.