ABSTRACT
In the inter-war period, the Royal Navy faced a series of fundamental challenges to its primacy at sea as the extensive building programs of the United States and Imperial Japanese Navies came to fruition. Following the First World War, the state of the British economy simply would not allow the British to engage in a naval building race, especially as technological changes raised question marks about the battleship as the key embodiment of naval power. Imperial crises created further problems for British policy makers as the constituent parts of the Empire moved towards home rule and independence. The problems appeared almost intractable and yet, by clever use of diplomacy, Britain was able to negotiate treaties and agreements that helped to safeguard British naval power up to the outbreak of the Second World War. This chapter demonstrates that in an age of naval multipolarity, effective diplomacy can play a vital role in defending the existing primacy of a naval power.
