sentences:  At the January council meeting, Caprivi emphasized the need for careful consideration of new designs, noting that the navy could not afford "the luxury of failed experiments", owing to parliamentary refusal to authorize funding for new ships.Concerns with a two-front war against France and Russia dominated Caprivi's thinking, which resulted in his decision to opt for a strategy of coastal defense in the memorandum; he noted that without a powerful battle fleet, the sea-going ironclads would have little utility against the numerically superior French fleet.He also pointed out that at the time, shell designers and armor manufacturers were competing to defeat each other, which necessitated spiraling costs for navies that attempted to keep pace with the latest technological developments.