Stardate 20010922.0646 (On Screen): The Taliban claim they've shot down an unmanned drone belonging to the US. This should not be a source of comfort to them. Drones are easy to shoot down; they have limited feedback to their pilot (back on the ground in the safe zone) and they are not very fast. They don't dodge; they don't carry ECM; they don't carry
HARMs. They're also very short range, since they're remotely piloted, which means that there is now in place a significant US military presence on the border of Afghanistan. A UAV unit wouldn't be deployed unless it could be defended against ground attack.
If we decide to start doing scouting in a big way, it won't be with easily-shot-down drones. We'll be using Wild Weasels or U2's. Wild Weasels fly low but they don't fly straight; they're heavily armed and can shoot back; they carry ECM and flares and a lot of other nasty stuff. The U2 flies at extremely high altitudes and can only be shot down with very large SAMs (and not even very easily with those). And there may be a wild card. Remember how the US suddenly popped up with the F-117A stealth bomber for the Gulf War? Out of nowhere, we just happened to have a full squadron of these babies ready to go. It's been speculated for a long time now that the reason the US retired the SR-71 Blackbird spy planes about ten years ago was that they actually had something better. I think this is likely, and if so this would be the time to use it. (discussion in progress)
Update 20010923: The US confirms that it has lost a UAV.
