Yonai saw Yamato as deterrence, not a war-winning fleet

Yonai supported ships such as Yamato and Musashi within a deterrent strategy rather than as tools for an aggressive building race. Large numbers of new ships would look like an attempt to challenge Britain and the United States directly. A small number of exceptionally powerful vessels could instead impose enough prospective cost to discourage war. The idea resembled risk-fleet or fleet-in-being logic. The policy sought political leverage from concentrated quality while accepting that Japan could not match Anglo-American quantity.