The fallout from Anthropic’s dispute with the Department of Defense has left the company in the awkward position of being actively used as part of the ongoing conflict between the United States and Iran, while being cut off from many of its defense industry customers.
Part of the confusion is the overlapping and contradictory restrictions imposed by the U.S. government. President Trump ordered civilian agencies to stop using Anthropic products, but the company was given six months to scale back its work with the Department of Defense. The next day, the United States and Israel launched a surprise attack on Tehran, and the conflict continued before President Trump’s directive could be fully implemented.
As a result, as the United States continues its airstrikes against Iran, anthropogenic models are being used for many targeting decisions. And while Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has promised to designate the company as a supply chain risk, no formal steps have been taken to do so, so there are no legal barriers to using the system.
A Washington Post article on Wednesday revealed new details about how Anthropic’s system is being used in conjunction with Palantir’s Maven system. As Pentagon officials planned attacks, the system “suggested hundreds of targets, issued precise location coordinates, and prioritized those targets according to their importance,” the Post reported. The article characterizes the system’s capabilities as “real-time targeting and target prioritization.”
At the same time, many companies involved in the defense industry have already replaced the Anthropic model with competitors. Lockheed Martin and other defense contractors began replacing their models this week, Reuters reported. Many subcontractors are also in a similar bind. A managing partner at J2 Ventures told CNBC that 10 of his portfolio companies are “in the active process of retiring the use of Claude for defense use cases and replacing that service with another.”
The biggest unresolved question is whether Hegseth will comply with the supply chain risk designation, which will likely lead to heated litigation. But on the other hand, one of the leading AI labs is rapidly becoming separated from military technology, even though it is used in combat zones.
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