NetworkedWarfighting

Arsenal Planes

 "Carter’s arsenal-plane concept is consistent with years of study and technology-development pointing toward a two-tier air-combat force for the near future, one in which stealth fighters act as forward sensors, designating targets for non-stealthy aircraft — F-15s and bombers — carrying much larger payloads.":

The problem with this as as soon as you network a stealthy platform, it loses it's stealth capacity. Pinpointing radio transmitters is not terribly difficult. And listening for them, even if the communication stream is encrypted, is easier still. The stealth platforms would need laser communications (pretty difficult for maneuvering aerial platforms) or some sort of very tight beam satellite uplink (and I'm not even sure about that one)

On the ground you can use laser relays or wired networking. In the air, this fails the plausibility test. Radio silence (including spread spectrum and other standard networking base layers) is the only way to maintain the element of stealth.