The Japanese Navy and the London Naval Conference

Commentary as part of the chapter "British SIGINT decrypts on the London Naval Conference, 1930". The London Naval Conference brought together delegates from the United States, Great Britain, Japan, France, and Italy for the purpose of extending and strengthening the era of naval limitation that had been ushered in by the earlier Washington conference. The Washington negotiators had not, however, agreed to limit the building of smaller vessels – including cruisers, destroyers, and submarines – and thereby unwittingly sparked a new race in cruiser construction. After a failed attempt to limit these vessels at Geneva in 1927, the chief naval powers concluded the London conference by signing a treaty which allowed Japan a ration of 10:10:6975 in auxiliary categories.