...Bryan Clark, a maritime analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA), said that while a high frequency radar on the island could have some law enforcement value – like similar radars the U.S. uses to detect drug runners in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean — it’s likely an HF radar on Cuarteron has a secondary military use to detect stealth aircraft.
Similar U.S. and Russian radars can detect surface targets at ranges well over the horizon – 80 to 200 miles. However Chinese and Russian versions could also notice the presence of low observable aircraft, Clark said.
“If I’m China, this is what I want to install so I can monitor maritime and aviation contacts,” he said.
“It’s got a nice dual use. It can find other aircraft that would be hard to find with traditional early warning radar frequencies.”