On May 14, 2025, the Pentagon warned that within a decade, Russia and China could develop nuclear missiles capable of striking the United States from low Earth orbit, much faster than traditional intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), Bloomberg reported, citing a report by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). The threat posed by the so-called Fractional Orbital Bombardment System (FOBS) requires an urgent revision of plans to create the Golden Dome missile defense system announced by US President Donald Trump.

According to the DIA chart, by 2035, China could increase its arsenal of land-based nuclear-tipped ICBMs with a range of over 5500 km from 400 to 700 units, Russia from 350 to 400, North Korea from less than 10 to 50, and Iran, which does not yet have such missiles, could acquire 60 ICBMs. However, the development of FOBS is particularly alarming: China could deploy up to 60 such missiles, Russia up to 12. These systems, which place warheads in low orbit, make it possible to reduce the flight time to the target and bypass early warning systems, including radars focused on northern trajectories, by attacking, for example, over the South Pole.

The Golden Dome, proposed by Trump in January 2025, is intended to be a multilayered missile defense system capable of intercepting ballistic and hypersonic missiles, including orbital ones. The U.S. Missile Defense Agency began consulting with industry in April 2025, but practical results are not expected until the 2030s due to technical complexities and high costs, estimated at hundreds of billions of dollars. Critics, including Congressman Ken Calvert, point out that the Dome concept remains vague, reminiscent of Ronald Reagan’s Star Wars program.