The Alaska class as an untreatied armored-cruiser evolution

How should the controversial Alaska-class large cruisers be categorized?

The ships resemble the heavy or armored cruisers that might have emerged naturally had treaty categories not constrained cruiser development.

The Alaska class fits a longer design lineage beyond the battleship-versus-cruiser label dispute. In this interpretation, ships of this scale resemble the heavy armored cruisers navies could have built if treaty rules had not interrupted that development. The comparison separates formal classification from design ancestry.