We have been experimenting with this technology since 1980. It is a technology that is expensive and hard to control. I don’t know where we are, but what we are doing will not be written up in a popular magazine.
Same with kinetic weapons. Testing has shown that they work, but are difficult to work with. (not accurate and can disintegrate in flight if anything gets off center.)
My guess is that defense against them would need to be of the laser type,— also something we have experience with but mostly is classified.
So I am for taking all this with a grain of salt. We should always suspect our competition to be working with new things.
“We have been experimenting with this technology since 1980.”
Actually. . .decades before that.