The system has not yet been deployed, but it is causing some degree of panic in Washington. This is partly because, in the midst of an electoral campaign, political agendas are driving a competition to outdo each other. According to the American press, US intelligence services have learned that Russia is making progress on a new weapon that can deploy nuclear weapons in space. These would not be designed to target the earth, but rather to use radiation to knock out the American satellite system. The White House has informed US lawmakers on the Intelligence Committee, as well as its European allies, according to the New York Times.

The French authorities have confirmed that they have been briefed. The next question is whether Russia plans to leave the 1967 Space Treaty, which prohibits the deployment of nuclear weapons in space. Its withdrawal could launch an unprecedented new arms race.

In a brief statement citing a "serious national threat," the chairman of the Congressional Intelligence Committee asked the White House to declassify the matter. "I am requesting that President Biden declassify all information relating to this threat so that Congress, the Administration, and our allies can openly discuss the actions necessary to respond to this threat," said Ohio Republican Representative Mike Turner on Wednesday, February 15.

The White House is furious. Faced with a barrage of questions at a press briefing on Wednesday, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said, "I'm not in a position to say anything further today." Joe Biden's advisor clarified that "Americans understand that there are a range of threats and challenges in the world that we're dealing with every single day. And those threats and challenges range from terrorism to state actors. And we have to contend with them." Sullivan was scheduled to meet with the eight-member Intelligence Committee on Thursday at a previously scheduled meeting.

Connecticut Democratic Congressman and Committee member Jim Himes called the case "significant" but "not a cause for panic." A report published in 2023 by the Center for Strategic and International Studies was not particularly alarmist. It "highlighted Russia's development of weapons to blind other satellites but noted that Russia had refrained from using the full range of antisatellite capabilities it had developed," summarized the New York Times.

However, in 2019, former president Donald Trump created a "space force" to help Americans catch up with an alleged delay in this area: "Space is the world's newest war-fighting domain," the Republican leader declared at Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland, on December 20, 2019. "Amid grave threats to our national security, American superiority in space is absolutely vital. And we're leading, but we're not leading by enough. But very shortly, we'll be leading by a lot."