Lessons from the Anglo-German Arms Race for the United States Navy​

By Eamonn Bellin

The militaries of two rival superpowers are separated by a narrow sea. The fate of a small state could provoke war between them. One is a rising power frustrated by perceived constraints on its expansion. The other is a longstanding global leader apprehensive of new dangers but reluctant to adapt. Reflective of their rivalry and central to their strategic options is the balance between their navies. These conditions apply to two contexts separated by a century: the Anglo-German rivalry of the early twentieth century and today’s U.S.-China competition. Britain and Germany’s struggle for naval dominance offers insights for assessing the U.S. Navy’s response to the challenge of the People’s Liberation Army Navy (“PLAN”). For the United States, the Anglo-German naval race impresses the dangers of assuming continued advantage over a weaker but determined rival and also reveals the logic and limits of “risk theory” applied by German or Chinese strategists.

The Anglo-German arms race shows the risks of complacency for an established naval power. Founded in 1853, the Prussian navy lacked ships, officers, sailors, bases, even an Atlantic coast. Conditions changed little for five decades. In the same period, Britannia “ruled the waves” with squadrons stationed on five continents and a fleet surpassing that of any combination of rivals. Britain did little to replace aging battleships, train sailors, test readiness, or develop new technologies. The Conservative cabinet was unmoved when the First Lord of the Admiralty, Lord Selborne, warned in 1901 that “the naval policy of Germany is definite and persistent,” or when he later cautioned “the more the composition of the new German fleet is examined, the clearer it becomes that it is designed for a possible conflict with the British fleet.” In 1905, a Liberal government was elected vowing to cut “wasteful” naval expenditures. Germany meanwhile was transforming its fleet. In 1897, the Reichstag authorized construction of 19 battleships, doubling this figure to 38 in 1901. Supplemental legislation added nine capital ships between 1902-1912. First Lord Reginald McKenna therefore shocked his colleagues when he reported, in 1909, that Britain needed to launch eight expensive “dreadnought” battleships in the next three years. Otherwise, McKenna warned, the margin between modern British and German battleships would be 16 to 13 by 1911. McKenna feared Germany “will probably have 21 big ships in commission in the spring of 1912.”

Just as a British prime minister once sneered that he would arrest Germany’s flotilla as “common pirates,” so too could the United States dismiss the PLAN’s fleet for much of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. In 2000, the U.S. Navy operated 100 more battle force ships than its Chinese counterpart. “History’s most powerful navy” was a commonplace bromide about the American fleet. Talk of cutting “extravagant” defense spending was equally prevalent. In the next twenty years, that advantage was reversed. If the PLAN and U.S. Navy were still numerically equal in 2015, today the PLAN operates 340 battle force ships compared to the U.S. Navy’s 294. The PLAN is projected to operate 440 ships by 2030, while the U.S. Navy is projected to operate 290. McKenna’s dire predictions in 1909 excited a “naval scare,” prompting massive outlays to offset German spending. Nothing comparable is evident in the United States today. Despite pronouncing a “pivot to Asia” in 2012, identifying China as a “strategic competitor” in 2018, and deeming its military a “pacing threat” in 2021, three consecutive U.S. administrations have not allocated substantially more resources to redress the widening naval imbalance. As Selborne vainly warned of Germany’s fleet, so too is the PRC’s naval strength being “raised so as to compare more advantageously than at present with ours.”

Despite herculean efforts, Germany’s navy was still outnumbered and outclassed by Britain’s when the First World War began. In 1897, Germany’s senior naval planner, Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, forecast Germany would not match Britain until 1915. Similarly, the PLAN’s numerical advantages are eclipsed by the U.S. Navy’s global reach and superior technology. What use are scores of patrol boats if the U.S. has 11 aircraft carriers to China’s two? Like Germany, the PRC’s naval strategy operates on the logic of “risk theory.” Tirpitz defined risk theory as possessing a “battle fleet so strong that even for the adversary with the greatest sea power, a war against it would involve such dangers as to imperil his own position in the world.” Germany did not require naval parity with Britain, only force sufficient to make the risk of war intolerable to Britain. Under such conditions, Tirpitz argued, Britain would be compelled to reach a favorable agreement with Germany on various colonial, commercial, and diplomatic issues. China’s naval buildup, particularly investments in “assassin’s mace” weapons, like the DF-21D and DF-26 missiles which imperil major American naval assets like carriers, uses similar reasoning. It makes the risks of fighting more painful than the costs of negotiation. With U.S. analysts predicting the loss of multiple carriers and hundreds of fighter jets in simulations of a U.S.-China conflict over Taiwan, risk theory appears compelling.

Yet Britain’s response to Germany exposes the drawbacks of risk theory for China today. Diplomatically, Germany did not extort concessions from Britain, but it did encourage Britain to resolve feuds with France and Russia. British admirals spoke of a “battle of Armageddon” between Britain and France in the 1880s. Yet because of Germany’s Navy Laws, Britain and France began to jointly coordinate their fleets in 1912. Strategically, Britain substituted its “Two Power Standard” of the 1880s, aimed at France and Russia, for a “One Power Standard” leveled against Germany in the 1910s. Penetrating the heart of risk theory, First Lord Winston Churchill wrote that “nothing, would more surely dishearten Germany than the certain proof that as the result of all her present and prospective efforts, she will only be more hopelessly behind.” Risk theory moreover motivated Germany to concentrate on battleship construction, viewed as the greatest threat to Britain. This encouraged neglect of other weapon systems, above all submarines, which proved more impactful than battleships in the First World War but too modest in number to be decisive.

China’s use of risk theory suffers similar vulnerabilities. China’s naval buildup has deepened security engagement between the other powers of the Indo-Pacific. Serious tensions still exist between Japan and the Republic of Korea for instance, or between the Philippines and the United States, but the PLAN specter has helped catalyze cooperation. The U.S. Navy has already repositioned the weight of its assets in the Indo-Pacific. A range of new doctrines, tactics, and weapons, from the Marine Corps’ adoption of Littoral Operations in a Contested Environments (“LOCE”) to discussions of countering-anti area and access denial (“A2/AD”) or investing in unmanned naval vehicles and stand-off bombers evince American resiliency to China’s use of risk theory. In emphasizing weapons that fulfill risk theory’s requirements, the PLAN, like the German navy, risks neglecting other systems necessary to sustain itself in war. The limits of risk theory do not preclude its success. Britain faced down Germany’s threat only by rapidly rebuilding its naval strength, making painful choices between priorities, and developing new strategies for a new threat. If the Anglo-German arms race illustrates the severity of China’s challenge, it also suggests how the United States can successfully adapt to the demands of competition.

Eamonn Bellin is a second-year graduate student in history at Georgetown University, where he studies the British Empire in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He formerly worked for the Alexander Hamilton Society, a foreign policy education nonprofit. He earned his B.A. in international relations and philosophy at George Washington University.

The views expressed in this piece are the sole opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Center for Maritime Strategy or other institutions listed.