Where things stand with the Department of War

• DoW designated Anthropic a supply chain risk to national security.
  • Designation covers Claude used “directly” in DoW contracts only.
  • Broader customer relationships with DoW contractors unaffected.
• Anthropic disputes legality; will challenge in court.
  • Statute requires “least restrictive means” — narrow scope required.
• Prior DoW work: intel analysis, modeling, simulation, ops planning, cyber.
• Two firm limits: no operational decision-making, no autonomous weapons or mass domestic surveillance.
• Leaked internal post: Amodei says tone was off, written on a hard day, now stale.
• Anthropic will supply models to DoW at nominal cost through any transition.

X discourse

• @CynicalPublius: “The Department of War is populated by literally tens of thousands of mid-grade officers whose singular job… is to writ” (8480 likes)
• @DoWCTO: “Our job here at the Pentagon is to prepare for the threats of the future and build a force to match them, and defeat the” (3028 likes)
• @sentdefender: “Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has issued a new memo to base commanders… allowing War Department personnel to request t” (2731 likes)
• @Defence_Index: “Pete Hegseth is said to be growing increasingly concerned about losing his position as Secretary of War… fueling the d” (618 likes)
• @dagenmcdowell: “The War Dept. for now — for now — has done its part. Sec. Pete Hegseth” (325 likes)
• @atrupar: “Hassett: \”Pete Hegseth at the Defense Departmen– or, Department of War\”” (173 likes)

Dario Amodei — CEO, Anthropic · ** · Read on anthropic.com