Stalin's death ended the battleship rivalry

Navies often build major warships in response to a named opponent. The same logic extends to ballistic-missile submarines and large cruise-missile submarines because an opposing force helps determine what a navy builds. Had the Soviet Union continued building battleships after Stalin, Western navies would likely have produced or retained counterparts capable of meeting them. Such ships might have combined Iowa-style guns with Kirov-style missiles and helicopters as successive modernizations kept them relevant. As with large carriers, only a few countries might have maintained one or two battleships, while the United States held most of them. The absence of a Soviet battle line instead made that expense progressively harder to defend.