[Stealhead]

Stealth is like any other tool of warfare once it is developed someone is going to have a need to develop a counter to it.With stealth the counter is easy radar that has the ability to see a very small return and determine if that return is an actual aircraft or natural anomalous effect like a flock of birds.In the old day the technology to do this did not exist especially in the USSR because they lagged far behind the West in terms of microprocessors.The story is different now though.You have to remember that the USSR had to observe thousands upon thousands of miles of airspace no small feat even when only having to worry about big fat returns now throw in a plane that has a very small one and you have a whole new headache.

Of course as Platapus already stated "stealth" is a bit of a misnomer because it really is making the plane appear to be something else rather than truly disappear.It is much like the term "bullet proof".Stealth still has many advantages such as greatly increasing the time that an air defense system has to identify an aircraft or strike force and that can more than enough to have a massive effect on the effectiveness of the defenders reaction in many cases a nation has a matter of moments to react to an air threat for some nations such as Israel the reaction time is extremely short.

Take a plane like the B-2 and give it a stand off weapon where it may only have to just penetrate enemy airspace and they likely simply have no counter.