The Washington Naval Treaty - The parties, the motives, the negotiations, the loophole abuse...

Comments · 967

• DR

  @Drachinifel · 5 years ago · pinned

  Pinned post for Q&A :)

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• GE

  @GeneralJackRipper · 5 years ago

  It's amazing how world-changing naval treaties are so easy to read and understand, yet local municipal parking codes are so byzantine and unintelligible.

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• TH

  @ThePinkus · 5 years ago

  J&apos;s argument: &quot;We calculated that to defeat You we need 70% of this, but You granted us only 60% of this!&quot;<br>A&apos;s argument: &quot;Well... yep!&quot;<br>...and that&apos;s why in diplomacy the real argument is often not stated.

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• GA

  @gamebook727 · 5 years ago (edited)

  The Americans didn&apos;t want to build the ships, but could have afforded to do so.<br>The Japanese did want to build the ships, but couldn&apos;t have afforded to do so.<br>The French wanted other people to think that they wanted to build the ships and could afford to do so, but in fact they didn&apos;t want to and couldn&apos;t have afforded to do so.<br>The Italians did not want the French to build the ships, and thought they had prevented them from doing so, but in fact see above. The Italians themselves could not afford to build the ships any more than the French could.<br>The British sort of wanted to build the ships, and could sort of have afforded to do so, but would rather everyone just restrained themselves as that would leave the Royal Navy in a better position than they could have paid for in the event of another naval arms race.

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• 11

  @1179125 · 5 years ago

  &quot;Britain managed to distract everyone from the exsistence of Hood that no one gonna asks to scrap it&quot; <br>German: Now this looks like a job for me

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• PR

  @PrivateHaggard · 5 years ago (edited)

  So... I basically listens for almost an hour to a man explaining an almost 100 year old navy treaty that only was relevant for about 10 years. Reach you absolute madman. Keep up the great work

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• BI

  @Big_E_Soul_Fragment · 5 years ago (edited)

  In real-life attempt to a game &quot;balance&quot;

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• JU

  @justit1074 · 5 years ago (edited)

  &quot;Ok, no more battleships&quot;<br>&quot;Lets build really large heavy cruisers&quot;<br>&quot;Ok, you can&apos;t build heavy cruisers larger than this set number&quot;<br>&quot;Lets build really large light cruisers and put heavy cruiser guns on them&quot;<br>&quot;Ok, now the only differentiating factor distinguishing heavy from light cruisers is gun calibre, and the previous limits on heavy cruisers now apply to both types&quot;<br>&quot;Lets build bigger destroyers&quot;<br>&quot;Fine, limitations on total tonnage of our entire destroyer flotillas&quot;<br><br><b>Ignores the treaties anyways</b>

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• KR

  @krisvires · 5 years ago

  &quot;Drach explains the Washington Naval Treaty... this should be good, like Game of Thrones... with Battleships!&quot; *goes to make popcorn.

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• AN

  @anthonyrobinson7715 · 5 years ago

  I always wondered why the Royal Navy accepted the limitation of just 2 Nelson-class. I never considered HMS Hood was silently standing in as the 3rd. Excellent video!

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• LO

  @logion567 · 5 years ago

  &quot;cheese goes on top of pasta and cheese goes on top of pizza&quot; Drachism of the day

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• CO

  @coartramey7382 · 5 years ago

  Despite the abuses, the Washington Treaty was a bellwether for voluntary international arms limitation and relieved pressure on national economies just when they needed it. It showed that even when motivated by self-interest the major powers could work together and could all benefit from controlling military expenditure.

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