![]() The most urgent issue was that of whether or not to renew the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, which was due to expire on 13 July 1921. The Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom and the Dominions met at the 1921 Imperial Conference to determine a unified international policy, particularly the relationship with the United States and Japan. The one-power standard was promulgated at the 1921 Imperial Conference. inferior in strength to the Navy of any other power". In 1920, the First Lord of the Admiralty Sir Walter Long announced a "one-power standard", under which the policy was to maintain a navy "not . Navy's building programme from becoming a justification for the Admiralty initiating one of its own. ![]() This decision was reaffirmed by Cabinet in August 1919 to preclude the U.S. Benson in March and April 1919, although, as far back as 1909, the government directed that the United States was not to be regarded as a potential enemy. Navy's building programme led to disputes between the First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Rosslyn Wemyss and the Chief of Naval Operations Admiral William S. In 1909, this was reduced to a 60% superiority in dreadnoughts. The two-power standard of 1889 called for a Royal Navy strong enough to take on any two other powers. Navy was smaller than the Royal Navy in 1919 but ships laid down under its wartime construction programme were still being launched and their more recent construction gave the American ships a technological advantage. Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa were self-governing dominions. The United States' determination to create what Admiral of the Navy George Dewey called "a navy second to none" presaged a new maritime arms race. Origins Īfter the First World War, the Imperial German Navy's High Seas Fleet that had challenged the Royal Navy for supremacy was scuttled in Scapa Flow but the Royal Navy was already facing serious challenges to its position as the world's most powerful fleet from the United States Navy and the Imperial Japanese Navy. The subsequent ignominious fall of Singapore was described by Winston Churchill as "the worst disaster and largest capitulation in British history". The strategy ultimately led to the despatch of Force Z to Singapore and the sinking of the Prince of Wales and Repulse by Japanese air attack on 10 December 1941. During the 1930s, the strategy came under sustained criticism in Britain and abroad, particularly in Australia, where the Singapore strategy was used as an excuse for parsimonious defence policies. A combination of financial, political and practical difficulties ensured that it could not be successfully implemented. By 1937, according to Captain Stephen Roskill, "the concept of the 'Main Fleet to Singapore' had, perhaps through constant repetition, assumed something of the inviolability of Holy Writ". The Singapore strategy was the cornerstone of British Imperial defence policy in the Far East during the 1920s and 1930s. ![]() ![]() Aware of the impact of a blockade on an island nation at the heart of a maritime empire, they felt that economic pressure would suffice. The idea of invading Japan was rejected as impractical, but British planners did not expect that the Japanese would willingly fight a decisive naval battle against the odds. The planners envisaged that a war with Japan would have three phases: while the garrison of Singapore defended the fortress, the fleet would make its way from home waters to Singapore, sally to relieve or recapture Hong Kong, and blockade the Japanese home islands to force Japan to accept terms. Singapore, at the eastern end of the Strait of Malacca, was chosen in 1919 as the location of this base work continued on this naval base and its defences over the next two decades. To be effective it required a well-equipped base. It aimed to deter aggression by Japan by providing a base for a fleet of the Royal Navy in the Far East, able to intercept and defeat a Japanese force heading south towards India or Australia. The Singapore strategy was a naval defence policy of the United Kingdom that evolved in a series of war plans from 1919 to 1941. HMS Repulse leads her sister ship HMS Renown and other Royal Navy capital ships during manoeuvres in the 1920s
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