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1932 › Herbert Hoover (Republican) › Naval arms and disarmament
Cut world armaments by one-third through the Geneva conference while keeping forces strong enough that 'no foreign soldier will land'
pledge_forwardspecific_pledgecandidate_directevidence A Federal Budget & SpendingDefense & MilitaryDiplomacy & International Institutions similar solutions · similar reasoning
Solution
Press the Geneva proposal to reduce armaments a third and shift weapons toward defense, saving the world $1 billion and the United States $200 million a year; maintain the London Naval Treaty ratios; do not reduce Army and Navy further absent general agreement.
Rationale
Standing armies grew from 2 to 5 million men since the war, breeding fear and taxes; reduced foreign arms budgets would raise foreign buying power for American goods.
Statements (5)
Meanwhile maintenance of our navy on the basis of parity with any nation is a fundamental policy to which the Republican Party is committed.
We support the essential principles of the National Defense Act as amended in 1920 and by the Air Corps Act of 1926, and believe that the army of the United States has, through successive reductions accomplished in the last twelve years, reached an irreducible minimum consistent with the self-reliance, self-respect and security of this country.
Fourth: I insist upon an army and navy of a strength which guarantees that no foreign soldier will land upon the American soil. That strength is relative to other nations. I favor every arms reduction which preserves that relationship.
We have made concrete proposals at Geneva to reduce the armaments of the world by one-third. It would save the taxpayers of the world a billion a year. We could save ourselves 200 millions a year. It would reduce fear and danger of war.
In the present disturbed state of the world we must not further reduce our defenses without a general agreement for the reduction of arms.
Follow-through
not_applicable
Hoover lost the election; the pledge could not be tested in office. The Geneva conference collapsed after Germany's withdrawal in October 1933; the second London Naval Treaty (1936) was a shadow of the earlier limits.
Enacted by others
| 1936-03-25 | Franklin D. Roosevelt | treaty Second London Naval Treaty | Limited qualitative restrictions only. source |
Other positions on this issue
- International agreements for the reduction of armaments — Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1932 directional_stance
1932-hoover-arms-reduction-one-third · created by claude-fable-5-1 · review: unreviewed