In the years immediately following the end of the war, the United States, Britain, and Japan all launched huge naval construction programs. All three countries decided that a new naval arms race would be ill-advised, and so convened the Washington Naval Conference to discuss arms limitations, which produced the Washington Naval Treaty, signed in February 1922. Under the terms of Article II of the treaty, "North Dakota" and her sister "Delaware" were to be scrapped as soon as the new battleships and , then under construction, were ready to join the fleet. "North Dakota" was decommissioned on 22 November 1923 in Norfolk in accordance with the terms of the treaty. She was disarmed and reclassified as an "unclassified" ship on 29 May 1924, and thereafter converted into a radio-controlled gunnery target ship. Her turbines were removed for later use aboard the battleship when she was modernized in the 1930s. She served in that capacity until 1930, when she was replaced by the battleship . She was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 7 January 1931 and sold to the Union Shipbuilding Co of Baltimore on 16 March 1931 for dismantling.