Both sea-launched and air-launched cruise missiles (SLCMs and ALCMs) should incorporate, to the extent possible, stealth technology and offer nuclear and conventional variants.
In the face of unconstrained and ever more competent Soviet defenses, large numbers of ALCMs have become essential to the continued viability of the B-52 fleet.
Even ALCMs employing stealth technology are constrained by their lack of flexible, in-flight retargeting capability, their smaller ordnance payload, and the absence of a means of recalling them once they are launched.