Whipple Shields are a very important part of protecting things like the ISS, but are optimized more for chance high velocity impacts with tiny bits of debris th

Whipple Shields are a very important part of protecting things like the ISS, but are optimized more for chance high velocity impacts with tiny bits of debris than an adversary's targeted projectile or their robotic arm grappler, or indeed non-kinetic weapons like directed energy or EMPs which is probably the capability the US intends to imply here.