The Pentagon’s recent dispute with Anthropic has exposed the wide chasm that exists between a Department of War under a Democrat administration and the Department of War under the Trump administration. Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, has discussed the frustrations that he experienced as a soldier fighting in prior conflicts. In recent years, lawyers at the Pentagon often made decisions on how soldiers in a battle could respond to enemy attacks.

Under the Biden and Obama administrations, soldiers were not allowed to respond to enemy attacks by using overwhelming force. Today, under Trump, commanders are allowed to “use their judgment” and use overwhelming force to win conflicts.

During the Biden administration, the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) began to be overseen by the federal government. Biden’s team wanted such tight control over AI that it was morphing into “regulatory capture.” Regulatory capture is when a few established companies entice the government to over-regulate in an industry. The over-regulation ends up protecting and helping the established companies because the cost of regulation makes it difficult for new companies to compete in the industry.

Anthropic was the one company that was urging tighter government regulation of AI. Because Anthropic was urging tighter regulation, the Biden administration began using their product throughout the federal government. Anthropic began pushing their products deeper into the federal supply chain. When Trump won the election in 2024, many Biden appointees went to work for Anthropic.

These Biden employees do not prefer a strong vibrant military and they wanted to continue holding tight controls on how the military fought in conflicts. These leftist helped Anthropic put tight controls on how the military could use their AI in conflicts.

Remember, many of the programmers and experts in AI are techie lefties who dislike conservatives. They have been educated at universities by professors who vote overwhelmingly Democratic. Anthropic wanted to impose their leftist political views on the military and thus a conflict arose.

President Trump appointed Emil Michel as Under Secretary for War for Research and Development and he began reviewing the contracts the War Department had with AI developers. Michel realized that the rules that Anthropic was placing on the War Department were handicapping our troops in the field. He pointed out to Anthropic’s CEO, Dario Amodei, that China was stealing their AI models and would be using their AI against US forces without all the rules that Anthropic was foisting onto our soldiers.

Anthropic was attempting to impose their political views onto the US military. If the Department of War agreed to Anthropic’s demands, leftist elite programmers, NOT GENERALS, would have the final say on military matters. Anthropic executives actually called Palantir executives to ask if Anthropic’s code was used in the extraction of Maduro from Venezuela. They were not happy with the military action against Maduro.

This was not acceptable to the Pentagon. They met with Anthropic executives and were not able to work out an agreement. Dario Amodei actually said that if there was a problem in a conflict, the Pentagon could call him and ask for an exception. Michel realized that Anthropics terms were not going to be acceptable to the Department of War where commanders are allowed to use their judgment in conflict situations.

Anthropic is a talented corporation that has developed an AI product that many Americans are using. Their leftist philosophy, however, will not work for a supplier of AI that soldiers must use in combat. Thankfully, our Department of War would not accept the terms that Anthropic demanded for use of their product.