Pentagon’s AI battle will help decide who controls our most powerful military tech

Battle over AI guardrails for autonomous weapons and domestic surveillance threatens U.S. national security sovereignty and will determine how government moves forward. Opinion Pentagon’s AI battle will help decide who controls our most powerful military tech Pentagon demands access to Claude AI model without restrictions on autonomous weapons and domestic surveillance capabilities By Lt. Col. Robert Maginnis, (ret.) Fox News Published March 5, 2026 9:00am EST Facebook Twitter Threads Flipboard Comments Print Email Add Fox News on Google close Video Fox News Flash top headlines for March 4 Fox News Flash top headlines are here. Check out what's clicking on FoxNews.com. NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! I spent decades inside the Pentagon watching technology reshape warfare. I saw precision munitions change the battlefield. I watched satellites compress decision cycles. But nothing compares to what is happening now. Artificial intelligence has moved the lab to the kill chain.And the showdown between Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and AI firm Anthropic is not a contract dispute. It is the opening battle over who controls the most powerful military technology of the 21st century.AI is already transforming war Look at Ukraine. Anthropic leadership refused demands from the Department of War to use its artificial intelligence for "all lawful purposes" after the Maduro raid. (Eduardo Munoz/Reuters:AHIKAM SERI/AFP via Getty Images) Western officials report that drones now account for roughly 70-80% of battlefield casualties in that war. But the real revolution occurs when AI is added. Reports indicate AI-guided navigation can increase drone strike accuracy from 10–20% to as high as 70–80%.That is not incremental change. That is a transformation in battlefield lethality. WHITE HOUSE OFFICIAL PRESSES ALLIES TO FREE AI FROM INNOVATION-KILLING REGULATIONSThe same dynamic is emerging in U.S. operations involving Iran and other theaters. AI tools are being used for intelligence analysis, targeting refinement, pattern recognition, and operational simulations. These systems compress time, reduce uncertainty and accelerate decisions. AI is not theoretical. It is operational. Video Which brings us to Washington.KYRSTEN SINEMA WARNS US ADVERSARY WILL PROGRAM AI WITH 'CHINESE VALUES' IF AMERICA FALLS BEHIND IN TECH RACEWhat the Hegseth–Anthropic standoff is really aboutOn Feb. 27, Hegseth designated Anthropic a "supply chain risk to national security." President Donald Trump ordered federal agencies to cease using its Claude AI model after Anthropic refused to remove two guardrails: A prohibition on fully autonomous weapons.A prohibition on mass domestic surveillance.AI RAISES THE STAKES FOR NATIONAL SECURITY. HERE’S HOW TO GET IT RIGHTArtificial intelligence has moved the lab to the kill chain. The Pentagon argues that military commanders must be able to use AI tools for all lawful defense purposes without seeking permission from a private company in real time. Anthropic argues that removing safeguards could enable autonomous killing systems or unconstitutional domestic spying.Both concerns are legitimate. TRUMP'S SCIENCE AND TECH MAN LAYS OUT WHITE HOUSE'S GLOBAL AI STRATEGYBut here is the deeper problem: America has outsourced strategic control of its most sensitive military algorithms to private contractors. Anthropic Co-founder and CEO Dario Amodei speaks at the "How AI Will Transform Business in the Next 18 Months" panel during INBOUND 2025 Powered by HubSpot at Moscone Center on Sept. 4, 2025, in San Francisco, California. (Chance Yeh/Getty Images for HubSpot) That is unsustainable.Draw the right line TOP AI FIRM ALLEGES CHINESE LABS USED 24K FAKE ACCOUNTS TO SIPHON US TECHLet me be clear about what must not happen. We must not expand domestic surveillance of American citizens under the banner of AI efficiency. The Fourth Amendment does not disappear in the age of algorithms. Second, we must keep a human being in the kill chain. I served under lawful command authority. Life-and-death decisions carry moral accountability. They cannot be delegated entirely to autonomous systems.CHINESE HACKERS TURNED AI TOOLS INTO AN AUTOMATED ATTACK MACHINE VideoThose are firm boundaries. But here is the other boundary: no private corporation should hold an effective veto over how America defends itself.Washington’s contractor addiction NEW U.S. MILITARY GENAI TOOL ‘CRITICAL FIRST STEP’ IN FUTURE OF WARFARE, SAYS EXPERTFor decades, the federal government has grown dependent on contractors for critical defense functions — logistics, cyber infrastructure, analytics and intelligence support. AI is simply the next frontier in that pattern. But frontier AI models are not spare parts or uniforms. They are strategic infrastructure. They influence targeting, operational tempo and potentially deterrence modeling. CEO of Anthropic Dario Amodei, founder of the Mila-Quebec AI Institute and professor of computer science at the University of California, Berkeley, Stuart Russell are sworn in during a hearing before the Privacy, Technology, and the Law Subcommittee of Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill