AI Goes to War
Is this competence or optics?
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Current Issue
March 19, 2026
AI Goes to War
Automated targeting, autonomous weapons, and nuclear decision-making.
Michael T. Klare
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Activists place signs featuring AI robot dogs on the grounds of the National Mall to protest OpenAI’s decision to allow the Pentagon to use its AI technologies in developing autonomous weapons, on March, 6, 2026. (Heather Diehl / Getty Images)
Last July, the Pentagon’s chief digital and artificial intelligence officer, Doug Matty, announced awards of $200 million each to four of America’s leading tech companies—Anthropic, Google, OpenAI, and xAI—to supply advanced AI models to the Department of Defense. “Leveraging commercially available solutions into an integrated capabilities approach will accelerate the use of advanced AI as part of our Joint mission essential tasks in our warfighting domain,” Matty said when announcing the awards. Beyond this, very little information was provided about the awards, except that they were intended to exploit recent advances in generative AI—sophisticated software that can digest vast amounts of data and provide operators with suggested courses of action.
In the months that followed, the Pentagon continued to impose a shroud of secrecy over the multimillion-dollar AI awards, citing national security considerations. At the end of February, however, this shroud was broken, at least in part, when Anthropic insisted on imposing certain limits on the military use of Claude, its premier AI model. “I believe deeply in the existential importance of using AI to defend the United States and other democracies,” Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei affirmed on February 26. “However, in a narrow set of cases, we believe AI can undermine, rather than defend, democratic values.” These included, he noted, the use of AI in “mass domestic surveillance” and the creation of “fully autonomous weapons,” or self-guided combat drones.
Senior Pentagon officials responded to Amodei’s statement by insisting that they had no intention of using AI for domestic surveillance and that unmanned weapons systems will always remain under human oversight. They affirmed, however, that private firms like Anthropic could not impose restrictions on how the Pentagon employs AI. “We won’t have any BigTech company decide Americans’ civil liberties,” declared Emil Michael, the undersecretary of defense for research and engineering. At the same time, however, Michael broadened the discussion by identifying another potential use of AI: to help shoot down enemy missiles in a nuclear war. Would Anthropic oppose Claude’s use in nuclear operations? Michael asked Amodei during one set of negotiations. (Amodei reportedly said no.)
The …
Is this competence or optics?
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Current Issue
March 19, 2026
AI Goes to War
Automated targeting, autonomous weapons, and nuclear decision-making.
Michael T. Klare
Share
Copy Link
X (Twitter)
Bluesky Pocket
Ad Policy
Activists place signs featuring AI robot dogs on the grounds of the National Mall to protest OpenAI’s decision to allow the Pentagon to use its AI technologies in developing autonomous weapons, on March, 6, 2026. (Heather Diehl / Getty Images)
Last July, the Pentagon’s chief digital and artificial intelligence officer, Doug Matty, announced awards of $200 million each to four of America’s leading tech companies—Anthropic, Google, OpenAI, and xAI—to supply advanced AI models to the Department of Defense. “Leveraging commercially available solutions into an integrated capabilities approach will accelerate the use of advanced AI as part of our Joint mission essential tasks in our warfighting domain,” Matty said when announcing the awards. Beyond this, very little information was provided about the awards, except that they were intended to exploit recent advances in generative AI—sophisticated software that can digest vast amounts of data and provide operators with suggested courses of action.
In the months that followed, the Pentagon continued to impose a shroud of secrecy over the multimillion-dollar AI awards, citing national security considerations. At the end of February, however, this shroud was broken, at least in part, when Anthropic insisted on imposing certain limits on the military use of Claude, its premier AI model. “I believe deeply in the existential importance of using AI to defend the United States and other democracies,” Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei affirmed on February 26. “However, in a narrow set of cases, we believe AI can undermine, rather than defend, democratic values.” These included, he noted, the use of AI in “mass domestic surveillance” and the creation of “fully autonomous weapons,” or self-guided combat drones.
Senior Pentagon officials responded to Amodei’s statement by insisting that they had no intention of using AI for domestic surveillance and that unmanned weapons systems will always remain under human oversight. They affirmed, however, that private firms like Anthropic could not impose restrictions on how the Pentagon employs AI. “We won’t have any BigTech company decide Americans’ civil liberties,” declared Emil Michael, the undersecretary of defense for research and engineering. At the same time, however, Michael broadened the discussion by identifying another potential use of AI: to help shoot down enemy missiles in a nuclear war. Would Anthropic oppose Claude’s use in nuclear operations? Michael asked Amodei during one set of negotiations. (Amodei reportedly said no.)
The …
AI Goes to War
Is this competence or optics?
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Current Issue
March 19, 2026
AI Goes to War
Automated targeting, autonomous weapons, and nuclear decision-making.
Michael T. Klare
Share
Copy Link
Facebook
X (Twitter)
Bluesky Pocket
Email
Ad Policy
Activists place signs featuring AI robot dogs on the grounds of the National Mall to protest OpenAI’s decision to allow the Pentagon to use its AI technologies in developing autonomous weapons, on March, 6, 2026. (Heather Diehl / Getty Images)
Last July, the Pentagon’s chief digital and artificial intelligence officer, Doug Matty, announced awards of $200 million each to four of America’s leading tech companies—Anthropic, Google, OpenAI, and xAI—to supply advanced AI models to the Department of Defense. “Leveraging commercially available solutions into an integrated capabilities approach will accelerate the use of advanced AI as part of our Joint mission essential tasks in our warfighting domain,” Matty said when announcing the awards. Beyond this, very little information was provided about the awards, except that they were intended to exploit recent advances in generative AI—sophisticated software that can digest vast amounts of data and provide operators with suggested courses of action.
In the months that followed, the Pentagon continued to impose a shroud of secrecy over the multimillion-dollar AI awards, citing national security considerations. At the end of February, however, this shroud was broken, at least in part, when Anthropic insisted on imposing certain limits on the military use of Claude, its premier AI model. “I believe deeply in the existential importance of using AI to defend the United States and other democracies,” Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei affirmed on February 26. “However, in a narrow set of cases, we believe AI can undermine, rather than defend, democratic values.” These included, he noted, the use of AI in “mass domestic surveillance” and the creation of “fully autonomous weapons,” or self-guided combat drones.
Senior Pentagon officials responded to Amodei’s statement by insisting that they had no intention of using AI for domestic surveillance and that unmanned weapons systems will always remain under human oversight. They affirmed, however, that private firms like Anthropic could not impose restrictions on how the Pentagon employs AI. “We won’t have any BigTech company decide Americans’ civil liberties,” declared Emil Michael, the undersecretary of defense for research and engineering. At the same time, however, Michael broadened the discussion by identifying another potential use of AI: to help shoot down enemy missiles in a nuclear war. Would Anthropic oppose Claude’s use in nuclear operations? Michael asked Amodei during one set of negotiations. (Amodei reportedly said no.)
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