This year marks the 100th anniversary of the conclusion of the Washington Naval Conference, which brought together the great naval powers of the day—the U.S., U.K., Japan, France and Italy—for arms-limitation talks. Leaders hoped that limiting the weapons of war would reduce the risk of a second global conflagration. In one of the dark ironies of history, the naval arms-control treaties of the 1920s, which were supposed to bring peace, prohibited or limited the production of allied ships… – Wall Street Journal Photo: US Navy