Soviet battleships and NATO's capital-ship reaction

If the Soviet Union had completed Stalin-class battleships, would new battleships have been built once those ships wore out?

Yes. NATO would likely answer Soviet battleships with a joint capital-ship design while continuing carrier construction and reconsidering how the lessons of World War II applied.

The answer treats battleship survival as a strategic interaction rather than nostalgia. Soviet capital ships would create pressure for a French, British, and American response, possibly through a shared NATO battleship design built in national yards. Nuclear propulsion, missiles, sensors, and accompanying Soviet carrier construction would all shape the allied ships built in reply. Aircraft carriers would still appear, but their coexistence with new battleships would change how navies interpreted the lessons of the Second World War. Later certainty about battleship obsolescence partly depends on the fact that postwar construction stopped. The retention of Vanguard, the King George V and Iowa classes, and continued Montana studies show that contemporary planners did not treat the decision as instantly self-evident.