The question becomes, however, if the perceived need for air occupation-type missions justifies the money, time, and effort required to develop a UCAV able to meet it. Beyond this, there is the question of whether the existing technology is capable of meeting the mission requirements. The UCAV might require on-board detection and tracking equipment. It might also use off-board sensors from a robot AWACS, as well as have the ability to receive data from ground-, air-, and space-based systems.
A more basic question affecting the future applications of stealth, whether it be manned aircraft, cruise missiles, UAVs, or UCAVs, is what kind of future wars do you plan for? Will they be like Desert Storm? Desert Fox? Vietnam? the Malaysian insurgency? peace keeping operations? retaliatory strikes? or, as is more likely, something totally unexpected? Certainly the air defense threat environment has changed radically. During the Cold War, the threat was from Soviet-designed missiles and radar. Today, U.S. and Allied forces must potentially face equipment from the old Soviet Union, from Russian and Western and Eastern Europe, from indigenous designs, and even American missiles and radars.
Desert Storm brought a realization of the threat from the spread of ballistic missiles, and nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. What were once strategic weapons restricted to the U.S. and Soviet Union are now found in Third World countries. The strong men who rule these countries seem to lack any restraints on using them. During the Gulf War, Saddam fired Scud missiles at Israel with the goal of provoking retaliation from a country which has long been reported to have nuclear weapons. Such behavior is outside classic deterrent theories.
The final problem is the long-term survivability of stealth itself. Various systems, such as bistatic radar or use of ultra-wide band frequencies, have been proposed as counterstealth measures. Each has technical and operational shortcomings.[857] As noted earlier, however, computer technology has advanced at a fantastic rate. Might at some future time, super computer technology be developed to coordinate the widely-spread units, and be able to sort out the very weak and sporadic echoes from a stealth aircraft? In such a case, we would have to revert back to classic countermeasures techniques. It would be ironic if, after all the changes of the past 50 years, simple chaff would be the one constant. Stealth would then both make it more difficult to detect a plane, and easier for an active ECM system to shield it. Also, while an early warning radar with a huge antenna and massive computing capability might detect and track a stealth aircraft, the same might not be true for a missile with an antenna a few inches across.
The advances in computers can equally aid the stealth aircraft. One can speculate that super computers could also make possible "smart" stealth and countermeasures. It might even be possible to succeed where Project Kempster failed, in which case, some future aircraft commander might actually say "Engage the cloaking device."
With the impending arrival of the 21st Century, all of us are setting sail on an unknown sea. We do not know where that voyage will take us, but the stealth experience does offer a guidepost. Stealth was created by a few men with vision, who saw both the need and the possibilities. Their ideas were translated into reality by the support of others with the courage to try. An idea is a fragile thing; it can be crushed by ridicule or extinguished by something as simple as neglect. But it is ideas, in every field of human endeavor, which lead us toward the invisible horizons.
857
John Shaeffer,