During the 1920s, Hitler's thinking on foreign policy went through a dramatic change. At the beginning of his political career Hitler was hostile to the UK, considering it an enemy of the "Reich". However, after the UK opposed the French occupation of the Ruhr in 1923, he came to rank the UK as a potential ally. In "Mein Kampf", and even more in its sequel, "Zweites Buch", Hitler strongly criticised the pre-1914 German government for embarking on a naval and colonial challenge to the British Empire, and in Hitler's view, needlessly antagonizing the UK. In Hitler's view, the UK was a fellow "Aryan" power, whose friendship could be won by a German "renunciation" of naval and colonial ambitions against the UK. In return for such a "renunciation", Hitler expected an Anglo-German alliance directed at France and the Soviet Union, and the UK's support for the German efforts to acquire "Lebensraum" in Eastern Europe. As the first step towards the Anglo-German alliance, Hitler had written in "Mein Kampf" of his intention to seek a "sea pact", by which Germany would "renounce" any naval challenge against the UK.