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The Washington Naval Treaty, also known as the Five-Power Treaty, was a treaty among the major nations that had won World War I, which by the terms of the treaty agreed to prevent an arms race by limiting naval construction. It was negotiated at the Washington Naval Conference, which was held in Washington, D.C., from November 1921 to February 1922, and signed by the governments of the United Kingdom, the United States, Japan, France, and Italy. It limited the construction of battleships, battlecruisers and aircraft carriers by the signatories. The numbers of other categories of warships, including cruisers, destroyers and submarines, were not limited by the treaty but those ships were limited to 10,000 tons displacement. 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.〔''League of Nations Treaty Series'', vol. 25, pp. 202–227.〕 Subsequent to the treaty were a number of other naval arms limitation conferences that sought to increase limitations of warship building. The terms of the Washington treaty were modified by the London Naval Treaty of 1930 and the Second London Naval Treaty of 1936. By the mid-1930s, Japan and Italy renounced the treaties, making naval arms limitation an increasingly untenable position for the other signatories. ==Background== Immediately after World War I, the United Kingdom had the world's largest and most powerful navy, followed by the United States and more distantly by Japan. The three nations had been allied for World War I, but a naval arms race seemed likely for the next few years. This arms race began in the United States. President Woodrow Wilson's administration announced successive plans for the expansion of the U.S. Navy from 1916 to 1919 that would have resulted in a massive fleet of 50 modern battleships. At the time, it was engaged in building six battleships and six battlecruisers. In response, the Japanese parliament finally authorised construction of warships to enable the Japanese Navy to reach its target of an "eight-eight" fleet programme, with eight modern battleships and eight battlecruisers. To this end, the Japanese started work on four battleships and four battlecruisers, all much larger and more powerful than those of the classes preceding. The 1921 British Naval Estimates planned four battleships and four battlecruisers, with another four battleships to follow the subsequent year. The U.S. public was largely unwelcoming of the new "arms race". The United States Congress disapproved of Wilson's 1919 naval expansion plan, and during the 1920 presidential election campaign, U.S. politics returned to the isolationism of the prewar era, with little appetite for continued naval expansion. Britain could also ill afford any resumption of battleship construction, given the exorbitant price of naval construction. In late 1921, the U.S. government became aware that Britain was planning a conference to discuss the strategic situation in the Pacific and Far East. To forestall the conference and to satisfy domestic pressure for a global disarmament conference, the Harding administration called the Washington Naval Conference during November 1921. Many point to Japanese naval might during the post-WWI period as the primary impetus for the convening of the Washington Naval Conference, suggesting that the resulting treaty's main goal was to limit Japanese expansion. However, the conference was motivated equally by competition between the US and Britain, as naval planners within both countries saw the potential for conflict with one another. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Washington Naval Treaty」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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