An Analysis Of The Disarmament Policy Of The United States Navy And Its Essentials In The 1920s

With the end of the First World War,the strength of Britain,Germany and other main Western European countries had been weakened.However,at the same time,America's strength had improved dramatically.The Washington Naval Treaty(Five-Power Treaty)signed at the Washington Naval Conference(1921)was aiming at limiting the arms race but did not gain satisfactory results as it only involved limiting the number of battleship not other types of warships albeit an arms race existed even in auxiliary ships.In the 1920 s,the American naval strength was weaker than its potential rivals,Britain and Japan,because of treaty limitations,pacifism,and lack of support from the Government and lack of funds for building naval armaments.During this period,the United States turned to major naval powers advocating them to disarm.Furthermore,after the disappointment of the disarmament conference held by National League in 1927,the United States decided to launch a further Naval disarmament conference in order to discuss how to limit auxiliary ships,both Britain and Japan attended this conference.The US Government advocated that disarmament could help to avoid an arms race,which would cost vast sums of taxpayer's money,however,whilst the United States actively advocated the essence of disarmament,it was not for the sake of world peace.It was due to strong rivalry between the United Kingdom and Japan for the superior position of naval armament.This conference highlighted the fact that the United States had only made up for the inadequacies of its naval strength through disarmament which had achieved the purpose of checking the development of naval forces in other countries,thus allowing the US to seize "Sea Supremacy " status thereby safeguarding its own national security and interests.This conference was a substantive act towards the idea of "the freedom of the sea" thus transforming into the “Sea Supremacy "thought of the United States inherited from President Wilson's " Sea Supremacy " thought.