Could NATO share the battleship response to Royal Sovereign?

Could Britain, France and the United States pool battleships to counter a Soviet Royal Sovereign?

A joint deployment is possible, but France's Mediterranean priorities and delays in American reinforcement could still leave Britain needing its own available capital ships.

Fleet proposes pooling British, French and American battleships to maintain an opposing capital ship in northern waters. The alternative is for Britain to retain more King George V-class ships, accepting cuts elsewhere in its fleet. Alex Clarke expects national priorities to make the shared arrangement difficult: France would concentrate on the Mediterranean, while a US battleship might have to cross the Atlantic before it could help Britain. A Soviet ship confined to the Black Sea in wartime could still create a political problem by entering the Mediterranean before hostilities. The disagreement concerns how much weight to give its fighting power against the damage and political embarrassment it could cause during a crisis. A joint NATO response remains possible, but the participants distinguish the alliance's early uncertainty from the trust developed later in the Cold War.