Is 'unmanned' making a comeback..?

I can remember in the ’60s, there was a strongly supported theory going round that the Lightning generation of interceptor and the Vulcan generation of bomber would probably be the last manned military frontline aircraft – the future was all going to be in guided missiles… it was all very much Cold War thinking based on global-strategic conceptions of warfare…

… and then Vietnam came along, the first of innumerable smaller scale conflicts, and caused everyone to have something of a rethink.

I wonder if the advance of technology – computerisation, miniaturisation – heralds a second wind for the concept of unmanned, teleguided ‘fighting’..?

As an example, although perhaps not the best, I’ve heard it said that Saddam Hussain could probably have been taken out with a single drone of the type that probably flies regularly at night out of Groom Lake – no need for mass invasions followed by manhunts.

In the wider picture and taking fighters as an example, everyone knows that the limiting factor in aircraft design has now been for some time the human pilot… there is a limit to what a g suit can do… and maybe the next generation of dogfighting might well be carried out between people sitting in darkened rooms, connected to intravenous drips…