Competing starting points for a naval-treaty counterfactual

Which is easier to assess: no naval treaties and twenty years of construction, or Washington without the London Naval Treaty and ten years of building?

The preferences differ: one retains Washington as a manageable baseline, while another favors continued building without Washington. Design studies do not establish what would actually have been built.

Keeping Washington while removing London offers an accepted treaty framework from which to explore ten years of renewed construction. That approach is preferred by one participant because the powers' incentives and later design work provide a manageable starting point. Clarke challenges how much certainty design studies supply: a study does not establish which ship would actually be ordered. He prefers removing Washington and allowing construction to continue. His strategic argument is that continued building could outpace German, Japanese, and Italian naval capacity and reduce the chance of war through superior strength.