ABSTRACT
The First World War spurred the United States to acquire – in the words of Woodrow Wilson – ‘incomparably the greatest navy in the world’, and amongst the many problems confronting Britain after 1919 was how to avoid an Anglo-American naval arms race. David Lloyd George was determined not to sleepwalk into another struggle for naval mastery. He rejected the expert opinion of his top naval advisers that building capital ships would enhance Britain’s security. Instead, he showed restraint in responding to the American naval build-up, while doggedly pursuing arms control talks with Washington. He thus prevented an escalation of the naval arms competition that emerged after the war, and so created the favourable conditions for a negotiated settlement of the naval rivalry with the United States and provided for Britain’s security at sea.
