Claim: Washington Naval Conference resulted in the end of the Five-Power Treaty.

The Washington Naval Treaty , also known as the Five-Power Treaty , and including the `` Four-Power Treaty '' and the `` Nine-power Treaty '' was a treaty among the major nations that had won World War I , which agreed to prevent an arms race by limiting naval construction . It was negotiated at the Washington Naval Conference , held in Washington , D.C. , from November 1921 to February 1922 , and it was signed by the governments of the United Kingdom , the United States , Japan , France , and Italy . It limited the construction of battleships , battlecruisers and aircraft carriers by the signatories . The numbers of other categories of warships , including cruisers , destroyers and submarines , were not limited by the treaty , but those ships were limited to 10,000 tons displacement .   The naval treaty was concluded on February 6 , 1922 . Ratifications of that treaty were exchanged in Washington on August 17 , 1923 , and it was registered in League of Nations Treaty Series on April 16 , 1924 .   Subsequent to the treaty , other naval arms limitation conferences sought to increase limitations of warship building . The terms of the Washington treaty were modified by the London Naval Treaty of 1930 and the Second London Naval Treaty of 1936 . By the mid-1930s , Japan and Italy renounced the treaties , making naval arms limitation an increasingly untenable position for the other signatories .