A Naval Arms Race
The years directly following the first World War contained “a naval armament race of proportions never before experienced" [1]. Under Woodrow Wilson, the United States had implemented ambitious naval programs that would have rendered the American fleet the largest in the world. This threat to Britain’s centuries-long naval supremacy was met with plans to “keep His Majesty’s fleet equal to, or superior to, any other navy” [2]. Likewise fearful of the threat the expanding American fleet posed to the Pacific territories acquired in the war, Japan had similarly ramped up naval construction programs in the years leading up to 1920. The massive fleets each nation sought to construct required proportionally massive costs, with Japan “spending nearly half its governmental revenue on its armed forces” [3] at one point. These monumental costs combined with a wildly popular disarmament movement to make it clear that something had to be done to contain the rapidly accelerating arms race.
A scatterplot depicting battleship construction by six major powers leading up to and after the Washington Naval Conference. Image used under Creative Commons License, courtesy of Wikipedia user The Land.
Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Battleship_building_scatter_graph_1905_onwards.png#/media/File:Battleship_building_scatter_graph_1905_onwards.png
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A Growing Peace Movement
The pressure for disarmament in the United States first manifested itself in a resolution by Senator William Borah, which called for the United States, Britain, and Japan to cut the size of their navies in half over the course of five years [4]. His resolution found popular support all around the country, and not only passed, but was followed by sharp cuts in appropriations for the Navy and another resolution from Borah calling for the three nations to negotiate an end to the arms race [5]. These reductions in funding meant that the United States could very well fall behind the British and Japanese navies, endangering national security. Responding to popular and political pressure, as well as reports that the British intended to assemble a conference on Far Eastern problems shortly, Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes somewhat hastily got approval from President Warren G. Harding for a naval conference, and had invitations sent to Great Britain, Japan, Italy, and France [6]. Hughes would go on to be at the very center of the Conference, serving not only as the head of the American delegation, but also as the chairman of the Conference [7].
American Contributors
Left to right: Senator William Borah, Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes, and President Warren G. Harding. Images courtesy of the Library of Congress.
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1. Merlo J. Pusey, Charles Evans Hughes, vol. 2, (New York: Macmillan, 1951), 453. Accessed through HeinOnline, https://bit.ly/383x1Gm.
2. Pusey, 453.
3. Pusey, 454.
4. George C. Herring, From Colony to Superpower (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 452.
5. Pusey, 454-55.
6. Pusey, 455-56.
7. Pusey, 468.
1. Merlo J. Pusey, Charles Evans Hughes, vol. 2, (New York: Macmillan, 1951), 453. Accessed through HeinOnline, https://bit.ly/383x1Gm.
2. Pusey, 453.
3. Pusey, 454.
4. George C. Herring, From Colony to Superpower (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 452.
5. Pusey, 454-55.
6. Pusey, 455-56.
7. Pusey, 468.