“Now that the United States has officially acknowledged it has those systems in space, it has opened the door for China and Russia to do the same, which people in the US will then use as justification for why we needed those systems there in the first place,” Samson said.

What is clear is there is now an arms race in orbit. The United States and China are leading the way by measures of volume and sophistication, while Russia appears to be the most aggressive in terms of tactics. But it matters less who started the arms race than how it ends.