The counterfactual requires political and institutional commitment after the missile age, not merely a technical breakthrough. The scenario imagines Stalin surviving long enough for the Stalingrad-class battlecruisers to enter service and for later Soviet Kirov-class and Russian ships to retain large guns alongside missiles. Such weapons might offer little rational advantage, yet prestige competition can still drive procurement. Rival states would then face pressure to answer the visible capability, while China might inherit part of the same design tradition. Political symbolism and arms-race dynamics could preserve a technological path that a narrow efficiency calculation would abandon.
Notable Point · 55:02-57:10
Politics could sustain a big-gun arms race
Continued Soviet construction of gun-armed battlecruisers could have kept prestige, imitation and threat response behind large naval guns even after missiles became dominant.