As Chamberlain realised acutely in his consultations with Briand and diplomatic exchanges with Stresemann, each of them pursued specific interests and harboured different assumptions on what the Rhine pact was to achieve. In particular, each had his own rationale as to how dynamic or restrained a transformation of European politics the pact was to inaugurate, and what this portended for the order of 1919. In sum, Briand's main aim in the protracted negotiations with Britain and Germany between April and October 1925 remained to retain the upper hand in upholding the Versailles system, and French pre-eminence. He sought to decelerate and minimise inescapable changes; and he sought to conciliate and rein in a resurgent Germany, both through the pact and by closing ranks with Britain and the United States.

Stresemann's main rationale was in some ways the opposite: to accelerate Germany's return to the concert of great powers, which was to yield new possibilities for peaceful revisions. His was to be a path towards ‘liberating’ the Rhineland and forging new ground-rules for modifying the Versailles system politically, economically and, in a more distant future, territorially. He hoped to achieve all of this in a co-operative manner, recognising French, and British, interests while also enhancing Germany's standing with the US creditor.

Thus, both sides were beginning to pursue their aims on the shared assumption that neither could reach them without a consolidation of their bilateral relations, which had to go hand in hand with a consolidation of Germany's position in Europe.