Yes but if the enlisted military personnel and general population aren't motivated to participate in a war then even money isn't going to guarantee victory. During the Vietnam War the US and Australia had the financial means to fight but not the will to continue to fight. Even South Korean troops were getting reluctant to volunteer to fight in Vietnam.
That is paraphrasing Austrian Imperialist Field Marshal Raimondo Montecuccoli in the 17th century.
In mentioning Montecuccoli above, there is also the factor of the morale of the troops themselves. Montecuccoli was a military theorist and wrote treatises on the art of war. However, he once said "The art of war is learned in the field, with the men, sweating and freezing." Books went so far, but practical experience in the field enabled Montecuccoli to out maneuver Turenne and Conde in the 1670s.
I don't have a problem discussing ships or navies after 1906. It was just a timeline that brought the IJN into the modern naval environment, that's all..
In our context though the thing to remember is:
I was wrong. Actually, the Kongo was designed by Sir George Thurston as a modified version of Reshadieh, a battleship Thurston had designed for the Turkish Navy which was seized by the British on the outbreak of WWI and entered service as HMS Erin. The Kongo, the lead ship of the class was built by Vickers at Barrow, the other three in the class being built in Japanese yards. The design of the Kongo so impressed the British Admiralty that the design of the Tiger was modified along the lines of the Japanese ships. During WWI, the British requested the loan of the Kongos but this the Japanese refused.
They might have been blown up at Jutland. "There's something wrong with our bloody ships today."
Or would they? The Tiger took 17 high-calibre hits at Jutland but was repaired in less than one month, a testament to her good design and strength.
The four Kongos were fine ships, but not well armored. As built, they were all approximately 28,000 tons displacement. When reconstructed and reclassified as fast battleships, around 4,000 tons of additional armor was worked in. Torpedo bulges and new boilers and machinery added to the displacement, in the 1930s, of about 36,000 tons. They were capable of 30 knots and were the only heavy units that could operate with the aircraft carriers. These fast battleships were very impressive for their day and they were heavily used in the early stages of WW II.
In 1673 he defeated Turenne in a battle of manoeuvres, but never met Conde in 1673.
Less than five years after Tsushima, every ship the Russians and the Japanese had in that war was hopelessly obsolete. The pace of technological change was extremely rapid at the time.
You are correct, no doubt. However, the fleet materiel of all other navies was similarly affected. The pre-dreadnought battleships continued in commission for many years after 1905, and much technology did not change drastically for quite a few years after Dreadnought in 1906. Even Dreadnought used coal as her fuel source, the main innovation there being turbine propulsion for a battleship. Turbines were not new but they were mostly used for destroyers and fast cruisers before HMS Dreadnought, as well as for passenger ships.
The backbone of British naval supremacy was the French and Italian fleets backed by the Russian army. Against Germany and Austria (both of whom were easily bottled up by geography) uses could be found for old junk- though a destroyer could handle them cheaper and better.
That may be true but a 7,800 ton armored cruiser capable of 21 knots is of little value in 1914. Jacky Fisher's greatest reform was scrapping the hundreds of worthless junk ships the British had. Ten years later, the relics were back draining men, material and the financial resources of the British fleet.
