Tirpitz Plan

The Tirpitz Plan, formulated by Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, was Germany's pre-World War I strategic aim to build the second largest navy in the world after the United Kingdom, thereby advancing itself as a world power. The British saw it not only as a challenge to its naval supremacy, but as a threat to its national survival (since the island of Britain was far from self-sufficient in food, and dependent on colonial resources); they responded in kind, sparking off an arms race. Germany responded to the plan with the Fleet Acts, which led to greater naval development.