Pentagon Ultimatum: Anthropic Forced into Service

On February 26, 2026, the US Department of Defense issued a strict ultimatum to AI developer Anthropic. The company has until the evening of February 27 to grant the military full access to the Claude family of models. In case of refusal, the Pentagon threatens to invoke the Defense Production Act or list the startup as a "supply chain risk."

This is an unprecedented step that breaks the pacifist ideology of Silicon Valley. For a long time, Anthropic positioned itself as a "safe and ethical" AI lab, distancing itself from military contracts. However, in the technological race with China, the US government is no longer willing to tolerate corporate neutrality. The forced mobilization of AI models sets a critical precedent: from now on, frontier LLMs are officially equated with strategic weaponry, and their developers are stripped of the right to choose clients when national security is at stake.

Source: Reuters / Axios