Warship construction as interwar politics

Difficult 1920s economic conditions could make construction more politically attractive. A government could use a major warship programme to provide employment while giving the public a visible symbol of national strength. That calculation sat amid fears of communist and fascist upheaval, using both terms for the period's actual political movements. Battleships could therefore serve domestic economic and political policy as well as naval strategy. Those domestic aims help explain why procurement could continue during a fiscal crisis.