1. A German spokesman grants that "When the capability to assess a potential adversary decreases, a defence philosophy which aims to maximise the protection of one's own forces may gain priority over cleverly thought-out concepts for prevention of war." "A German Perspective on Missile Defence." Presentation at the RUSI Conference on International Missile Defence, London, October 16-17.2001.
2. See Dick Richardson, The Evolution of British Disarmament Policy in the 1920s (London: Putter Publishers, 1989); Robert Gordon Kaufman, Arms Control During the Pre-Nuclear Era: The United States and Naval Limitation between the Two World Wars (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990); and Erik Goldstein and John Maurer, eds., The Washington Conference, 1921-22: Naval Rivalry, East Asian Stability and the Road to Pearl Harbor (London: Frank Cass, 1994).
3. Robert B. Strassler, ed., The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to the Peloponnesian War (New York: Free Press, 1996), p. 43.
4. In the 1930s, Britain had major commercial interests, as well as 4,000 nationals, in the great port city of Shanghai. In the so called "Shanghai incident" of 1932, the British army deployed three battalions to the city, while the RN's China Squadron was led by no fewer man finir 8-inch gun cruisers. The trigger for this muscle flexing was of course Japanese threats to those sections of Shanghai under Chinese control. For the balance of the 1930s, however, Britain grew ever less interested in confronting Japanese ambitions in China. See Anthony Clayton, The British Empire as a Superpower, 1919-39 (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press. 1986), pp. 323-34.
5. See Zhang, Deterrence and Strategic Culture.