Let's imagine that for some reason, the five-powers meeting in Washington were never able to negotiate a comprehensive naval reduction treaty. It is still reasonable to suppose that each of the contracting powers would be faced with internal political and economic constraints that limit new capital ship construction plans, so nobody would ever complete all the huge numbers of massive ships planned by the US, Japan, Britain. A few, perhaps, but not everything.
I'm interested in how the absence of a treaty might affect cruisers. Would ships equivalent to "treaty cruisers" (10,000 tons, eight to ten 8-inch guns, relatively light armor protection, speed over 30 kts) still become the standard in all navies, or would each fleet develop non-capital ships differently, based on their own geostrategic position. I could imagine this ranging from large and powerful commerce-raiding cruisers - and comerce-raiding hunters - , through hybrid flight-deck cruisers, down to only smaller destroyer-leader type ships. To some extent the OTL "heavy cruiser" functioned somewhat as small capital ships and (as during the Solomon campaigns in 1942) engaged in line-of-battle fleet actions because BBs were not available.
I'm interested in how the absence of a treaty might affect cruisers. Would ships equivalent to "treaty cruisers" (10,000 tons, eight to ten 8-inch guns, relatively light armor protection, speed over 30 kts) still become the standard in all navies, or would each fleet develop non-capital ships differently, based on their own geostrategic position. I could imagine this ranging from large and powerful commerce-raiding cruisers - and comerce-raiding hunters - , through hybrid flight-deck cruisers, down to only smaller destroyer-leader type ships. To some extent the OTL "heavy cruiser" functioned somewhat as small capital ships and (as during the Solomon campaigns in 1942) engaged in line-of-battle fleet actions because BBs were not available.