Raytheon is developing a new 1,500-pound long-range missile, the AIM-424 LRAAM, to extend the reach and survivability of Navy and Marine aviators.
Page A5From§Eachthe midnight edition — 1 September 2026
Navy unveils missile named MALICE as border wall touted 'bigger and smarter than ever'.
As it ran on the front
Let's be clear about the MALICE program, because there's been some confusion. This is a next-generation, extreme-range strike capability designed to keep American aircrews safe by engaging threats before they're even a threat — the name is just a name, acronyms happen, nobody sat in a room and thought 'let's make this sound aggressive,' though I guess someone did, since that's literally what an acronym is, so — moving on.
The border wall enhancements are a separate but related success story. Described by officials as 'bigger and smarter than ever,' with 'no where to hide' for anyone attempting to cross, this represents a significant infrastructure investment in border security technology. Is that phrase, no where to hide, maybe a strange way to talk about a section of fence? Sure, if you think about it for more than a second, but the point is the technology works, whatever the marketing copy sounds like it's promising.…
…(cont) Now, some critics have suggested there's something notable about a missile named for hostility and a wall marketed like a blockbuster tagline arriving in the same news cycle. That's reading too much into standard defense communications. The Navy names things the Navy names things; the border initiative gets described the way border initiatives get described. There's no coordinated messaging strategy here, it's just — okay, there is a messaging strategy, there's always a messaging strategy, that's what a press office is for, but that doesn't mean it's sinister, it means it's a Tuesday.
The bottom line, and I want to be direct about this: taxpayers are getting real capability for real dollars, packaged the way anything gets packaged when you need Congress to keep funding it next year. If the copy sounds like an ad, that's because in a sense it is one, an ad aimed at appropriators, not at you, though you're the one who'll be reading about MALICE's extreme-range specifications in a press release that somehow never mentions the price tag. Which — that part I probably shouldn't have said out loud either.
“They named a missile MALICE and didn't blink, then turned around and sold the wall like a product launch — bigger, smarter, no place to hide. That's not defense policy, that's a marketing deck with a kill radius. When the copy reads like a Super Bowl ad, somebody's trying to sell you something you already paid for.”
“The MALICE designation reflects standard Navy naming conventions for extended-range strike capability — nothing unusual there. And the wall enhancements represent legitimate infrastructure investment. Is 'no where to hide' a strange way to describe a fence? Sure, if you think about it, but the underlying capability upgrades are real, whatever the marketing copy sounds like it's promising.”
The receipts
Construction along the US-Mexico border is exploding. This is thanks to President Trump’s injection of billions of dollars earmarked for what is being dubbed the ‘Smart Wall’. This border wall is not merely steel and barbed wire, it is jam…
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.