Pentagon's Friday Ultimatum Threatens Anthropic's Classified AI Monopoly

The Pentagon just threatened to label an American AI company as a foreign adversary. Let that sink in.

By Friday, February 27th, Anthropic must choose: abandon their principled stance on AI safety or watch the Defense Department potentially invoke the Defense Production Act against them. This isn't some bureaucratic paperwork shuffle—this is a $50 billion industry about to fracture along ideological lines.

Claude's Classified Kingdom

Here's what most coverage misses: Anthropic's Claude isn't just another AI model in the Pentagon's toolkit. It's the only frontier AI deployed on classified U.S. military networks. Think about that monopoly for a second. While OpenAI and Google fight for scraps in the unclassified space, Anthropic somehow secured exclusive access to the most sensitive military systems.

That exclusivity just became their biggest liability.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth met with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei on Tuesday, where Amodei reportedly doubled down on his refusals. No mass domestic surveillance of U.S. citizens. No fully autonomous weapons without human oversight. These aren't unreasonable positions—they're basic AI ethics guardrails that most developers would applaud.

But the Pentagon's new AI Acceleration Strategy, released in January, demands an "AI-first warfighting force" with models available for "all lawful purposes." Notice that phrasing? Lawful is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.

The Real Story: A Manufactured Crisis

This quote reveals the Pentagon's fundamental weakness. They created single-vendor dependence, violating a late Biden-era National Security Memorandum specifically designed to prevent this scenario. Now they're manufacturing a crisis to solve their own strategic blunder.

The timing isn't coincidental. Claude was reportedly used in January's military operation to capture former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. That operation likely pushed internal Pentagon discussions about AI capabilities and constraints to a boiling point.

Meanwhile, competitors are circling like vultures:

• xAI: Already agreed to "all lawful use" at any classification level
• OpenAI: Flexible on unclassified, negotiating classified access
• Google: Playing both sides, positioning for maximum advantage

Anthropics's competitors aren't stupid. They see an opportunity to fracture the classified AI monopoly and they're taking it.

The DPA Nuclear Option

If Anthropic doesn't budge, the Pentagon has two nuclear options:

1. "Supply chain risk" designation - typically reserved for foreign adversaries like Huawei

2. Defense Production Act invocation - forcing Anthropic to build custom, guardrail-free versions

Both would be unprecedented. The DPA has never been used to compel an American AI company to abandon safety measures. The "supply chain risk" label would cascade through the entire ecosystem, potentially barring Anthropic from all government work.

Why This Matters for Every Developer

This standoff is creating a two-tier defense AI market: companies willing to build unrestricted models versus those maintaining safety constraints. If you're building AI tools, you'll soon need to choose sides.

The Pentagon is essentially weaponizing procurement to enforce industry-wide compliance. Win this fight against Anthropic, and every other AI vendor falls in line. Lose it, and the military's AI ambitions hit a wall.

Anthropics spokesperson Maya Humes described ongoing talks as "good-faith conversations," but good faith doesn't typically come with Friday ultimatums and threats of federal designation as a security risk.

The clock is ticking. By Friday evening, we'll know whether AI safety principles can survive contact with Pentagon politics. My money? This ends with a face-saving compromise that quietly guts most of Claude's guardrails.

Because in Washington, the house always wins.