Washington Naval Conference - Policies Agreed Upon

Policies Agreed Upon

The Washington Conference was called by President Warren Harding and run by Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes. Harding demanded action in order to gain domestic political credit. Hughes—helped by the cryptographers who were reading the Japanese diplomatic secrets—brilliantly engineered a deal that everyone thought best for themselves. To resolve technical disputes about the quality of warships, the conferees adopted a quantitative standard, based on tonnage displacement (a simple measure of the size of a ship.) A ten-year agreement fixed the ratio of battleships at 5:5:3—that is 525,000 tons for the USA, 525,000 tons for Britain, and 315,000 tons for Japan. Smaller limits with a ratio of 1.7 applied to France and Italy. The dominant weapons systems of the era—battleships—could be no larger than 35,000 tons. The major powers allowed themselves 135,000:135,000:81,000 tons for the newfangled aircraft carriers. The Washington Conference exactly captured the worldwide popular demand for peace and disarmament; without it, the US, Britain and Japan would have engaged in an expensive buildup, with each worried the other two might be getting too powerful. The agreements forced the US to scrap 15 old battleships and 2 new ones, along with 13 ships under construction. Britain had to scrap ships too—indeed, more warships were lost at Washington than at any battle in history.

The naval treaty was concluded on February 6, 1922. Ratifications of that treaty were exchanged in Washington on August 17, 1923, and it was registered in League of Nations Treaty Series on April 16, 1924. Japan agreed to revert Shandong to Chinese control by an agreement concluded on February 4, 1922. Ratifications of that agreement were exchanged in Beijing on June 2, 1922, and it was registered in League of Nations Treaty Series on July 7, 1922.