A Hundred Years Later, the Washington Naval Conference Still Holds Lessons for Policymakers
The 1921 inter-war naval armaments conference promised mechanisms to avoid another global conflict — especially in the Western Pacific region
The popular mood in the West was peace and international cooperation as the 1920s began. There was a mood of guarded optimism that the conditions that gave rise to the Great War in 1914 were rapidly fading. Less money for armies and navies meant more money for social welfare and the building of modern societies. Much like during the post-Cold War era early-1990s, there was a sense that there would be a peace dividend for the world’s great powers like Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia, the United States and Japan. Though the Great War had ended, colonial interests did not.
So began the Washington Naval Conference, the first major arms control conference in history. It lasted from November 12, 1921 until early February 1922. U.S. Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes, an internationalist, invited eight other nations (Great Britain, Japan, China, France, Italy, Belgium, Portugal and Netherlands) to Washington, D.C. to discuss naval reductions and the situation in the Western Pacific and Far East/East Indies.
The 1921 conference finds new meaning as tensions in the western Pacific today between China and the United States (as well as American allies) continue. China has adopted a more muscular foreign and defense policy in the region, from holding large-scale military exercises near Taiwan to pursuing contentious territorial claims in the South China Sea where roughly one-third of global maritime shipping transits.
On a macro level, beyond limiting the size and number of capital ships in the respective signatories’ fleets, a major objective was to contain Japan’s growing naval expansion in the increasingly important Western Pacific. This meant creating a new cooperative security regime for the Pacific and East Indies. The conference negotiations would eventually lead to three major treaties: the Five-Power Treaty (battleship fleet size and weight limits), the Four-Power Treaty (confidence-building regime for the Pacific region), and the Nine-Power Treaty (reaffirming Chinese sovereignty and the Open Door Policy in China).
The ten year Five-Power Treaty established a fleet ratio formula for the U.S., Great Britain, Japan, France and Italy. Battleships could be no larger than 35,000 tons displacement. The ambitious treaty required the U.S., Great Britain and Japan to scrap or halt construction on dozens of warships.
The treaties of the Washington Naval Conference worked for over a decade. They significantly limited the number of large battleships and created expectations among the military and political leaders of the signatory nations that dialogue was more important than overt military confrontation.
By the late-1920s, a cascade of events led to changing national priorities: the Great Depression begins in late 1929, Japan invades Manchuria in 1931 and Adolph Hitler becomes German chancellor in 1933 and begins a significant rearmament program. Japan exited the Five-Power Treaty in 1936. History had left the treaties of the Washington Naval Conference in its wake.
How can the Washington conference inform political and military leaders a hundred years later?
China’s rapid military development in the Pacific region including the building of airstrips and monitoring stations within contested areas of the South China Sea is changing the security dynamics of the region. A November 15 virtual summit was held between U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping covering several contentious issues. The two leaders have a good working relationship but challenges will likely grow as the western Pacific region becomes an even more complex strategic environment where valuable trade routes and marine natural resources intersect with sparsely populated islands and contested borders.
The U.S. is pursuing strategic alliances like the AUKUS strategic partnership and the accompanying submarine deal with Australia and the United Kingdom; the alliance perhaps shares a common trait with the Four-Power Treaty of 1921 in seeking to maintain status quo safety as facts on the ground (and in the sea) begin to change.
The London Naval Conference of December 1935 sought to update constraints on battleship size, fleet size and aircraft carrier capabilities. But it served as the de facto closing act on the era of naval arms agreements. Why? One reason: new technology. A revolution in naval technology was underway that proved to be irresistible to all naval great powers. Sonar, submarine technology, fast-loading big caliber main guns meant modern navies had to invest and deploy first; confidence-building steps came second.
The geopolitical mood in 2021 seems conducive for a new arms race in the Pacific. Hypersonic missiles, drone swarms and anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBM) are just some of the new technological advances that can and will alter any future naval conflicts in the Pacific. Today, the aircraft carrier is the dominant naval strategic and tactical platform. But just like the dreadnought battleships from a hundred years ago, technological advances are slowly threatening that undisputed supremacy.
Add global stressors like the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and a new appreciation of the seeming fragility of the global supply chain system and it seems clear that diplomatic and military leaders in 2021 face similar challenges to those faced by the great powers a hundred years ago as they met in Washington hoping to forestall an expensive arms race in the western Pacific. A region still so critically important to international trade and global security.
