The disarmament issue was immediately dealt with. The American public enthu- siastically greeted this new policy as the conviction was spreading that selfish interests of the armament industry had driven the USA into the war. Peace move- ments demonstrated and rallied for international disarmament, the foreign policy was just in line with the public sentiment.[190]

   In late 1921, secretary of state Hughes invited nine leading powers to Washington, D.C. to discuss with them the arms race and problems related to this issue. Although Italy, Japan, Great Britain, France, China, Belgium, the Netherlands and Portugal attended, the Soviet Union had not been invited. All of the colonial powers - and China, an object of colonial aspirations - were assembled. As the United States had come to realize Japan’s growing power, it wanted to substitute the 1902  defen- se alliance between Britain and Japan with a treaty that involved the U.S. If conflict was to erupt between the U.S. and expansionist Japan some day over an issue in the Pacific, the Americans did not want to have to face the British as well. Japan had al- ready been checked economically when it turned to the world’s new money source, New York, for loans to develop Manchuria and Korea. To receive them, Japan had had to agree to honor the principles of the Open-Door in China, except for its sphe- res of influence. Dependent on the New York capital market, the next task was now to seal in its military power.[191]

  In his opening speech at the conference, Hughes immediately made the U.S. goals clear to the other participants:

„If we are to be spared the uprisings of peoples made desperate in the desire to shake off burdens no longer endurable, competition in armament must stop. (...)
1. All capital-ship building programs, either actual or projected, should be abandoned
2. That further reduction should be made through the scrapping of certain of the older ships. On (..) 15 capital ships now being built over $330,000,000 have been spent. Still, the United States is willing in the interest of immediate limitation of arma-ment to scrap all these ships.“[192]

   The other powers were shocked at first about what had been demanded of them, but after negotiations, several treaties were signed that put an end to the arms race in Asia and established new security structures.

   The ‘Five-Power Treaty’ set limits for the naval capacities of Britain, the U.S., Japan, France and Italy in a  10 :10 : 6 : 3,3 : 3,3   ratio, but due to Japanese objections prohibited any new fortification of British or American bases in the Pacific. The treaty did, however, not include smaller cruiser or submarines.

   The ‘Four-Power Treaty’ was supposed to reinforce the first treaty by providing for consultations among Britain, Japan, the United States and France and a declara- tion of non-aggression.

   The ‘Nine-Power Treaty’ was signed by all attending powers and put the princi- ples of equal economic opportunity (known as ‘Open-Door’) into international law and gave them universal acceptance among those powers who held colonies and could possibly attempt to seal them off from international trade. However Japan again had its way by adding a security clause that re-
cognized its  influence in Manchuria.

   The Americans considered the conference a total success, they had done nothing that would have limited their freedom of action, but had the Open-Door acknow- ledged internationally and considered Japan’s expansionist urge confined in a firm treaty system and the dependence of U.S. capital.[193]  In reality, the U.S. influence diminished as they never actually reached the limits on naval power and the Chi- nese nationalist government shut itself off from foreign trade.[194]

   In 1928, the ‘Briand-Kellog Pact’ initiated by the U.S. outlawed war and 60 nations signed it.
Many considered it to be an evidence that ‘civilized societies’ don’t wage war any- more. But this security was only imaginary. The pact was not more than an appeal to the morality of power.[195]