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Arms limitation conferences are nothing new, and one example was the Washington conference in 1921 to 1922 which set out to limit an arms race in the Pacific region. The major powers in the regions at that time were Great Britain, America, Japan and, to a lesser extent, France. Each of these countries had extensive interests, bases and mandates over islands in the Pacific and the danger was always present that disputes would crop up involving overlapping interests and that these could lead to conflicts so hardly surprisingly all the participants were ensuring a heavy naval presence in the area. The Four Party Pact in 1921 laid down that all these countries would respect each other's hegemonies and that in the event of a dispute it would be put before all the signatories to the pact for consultation. The problem was that this agreement swept away a number of other agreements which had hitherto helped to preserve peace and prevent clashes; had the Four Party Pact improved upon these agreements then this could have constituted progress but unfortunately it did not, and was worded in such vague terms as to allow numerous interpretations. You can obtain excellent young drivers insurance or taxi insurance here! A Five Power Conference in 1922 brought Italy into the negotiations and the proposals put forward by the United States government were quite seismic; they asked for a decrease in warships in the region which was to be achieved by the scrapping of nearly 2000000 tonnes of warships! This was later amended to an agreement to fix the ratios of capital ships that each participant possessed but the effect was very similar, in that a huge tonnage of existing or proposed ships were cancelled or scrapped. Quotas were fixed at around the current level, with the ratio of ships for Great Britain, the USA and Japan decided at five: five: three with lower numbers for France and Italy and agreements were made to place severe limits on future capital ship investment for the next 10 years. Politics being politics however this agreement was eventually viewed as unfair by the Japanese who saw themselves at a considerable disadvantage to Britain and the USA either individually or, most certainly, jointly and a demand for renegotiation of the treaty to give Japan parity was put forward, but rejected. The stage was set for future confrontation and Japan pulled out of the treaty in 1936. It could be argued that a more realistic view of the power balances in the Pacific region could have led Britain and America to accede to Japan's wish for naval parity in the Pacific, and that this would have had a considerable bearing upon the Japanese decision to strike against the American fleet at Pearl Harbour in 1941; this in turn could have influenced the American decision to become involved in the war in Europe in which case the outcome of that particular conflict could have been entirely different; but then much of history hinges upon decisions which appear to be unimportant at the time! Copyright Ian Frost Enterprises All Rights Reserved 2009
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