This piece was originally published in Pirate Wires.

Last month The Wall Street Journal and Reuters published pieces critiquing Anduril’s practice of testing its weapons to failure, the press’s latest go at attacking technology companies working in the national interest. (You might recall the predictably negative coverage of many a SpaceX test launch, from Falcon 1 to Starship.)

It wasn’t always this way. The press once recognized that developing frontier technology is hard, and it’s better to have an explosion on the test range than the battlefield. During the Cold War, testing to failure helped America build the best weapons faster than the Soviet Union. Media coverage reflected this reality in order to help, rather than hurt, America’s interests.