What’s Really at Stake in the Fight Between Anthropic and the Pentagon

Feud goes beyond AI guardrails and revolves around the dream of the nascent technology’s future

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei JEREMY LEUNG/WSJ, AP, BLOOMBERG

By Tim Higgins

March 1, 2026 5:30 am ET

It would be so much easier to understand the fight between the Pentagon and AI star Anthropic if we were talking about traditional weapons.

If Anthropic were selling bullets, for example, then obviously Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wouldn’t want limits imposed by an ammunition maker on whom he could shoot at or when. But AI is way more, a nascent technology featuring the promise of possible superintelligence. Its potential uses and capabilities are still being developed.

So the real fight is over the dream of what AI could be.

It is the same disagreement that is taking place across Wall Street and corporate America. What exactly does artificial intelligence mean for our future?

It is a question that sent the stock market into a tizzy this past week on a report by Citrini Research that painted a doomsday scenario for the economy if AI wipes out the white-collar workforce. “What if our AI bullishness continues to be right…and what if that’s actually bearish?” the firm asked.

It’s at the heart of some Silicon Valley workers’ fears that the American dream is on the verge of vanishing as AI further divides the haves from the have-nots in a world where humans are replaced by robots in factories and cubicles.

For Anthropic Chief Executive Officer Dario Amodei, there is concern over Pentagon demands to remove its self-imposed rules that prevent the company’s AI from being used for mass domestic surveillance and autonomous weapons. “Frontier AI systems are simply not reliable enough to power fully autonomous weapons,” Amodei said Thursday. “We will not knowingly provide a product that puts America’s warfighters and civilians at risk.”

His statement came ahead of a Friday deadline for the company to get on board with the Pentagon’s demands or else face some pretty dire consequences. With Anthropic’s recalcitrance, President Trump responded by announcing the entire federal government would stop working with Anthropic.

Strikes on Iran will test US cyber strategy abroad, and defenses at home

Smoke rises over Tehran after airstrikes on Iran on February 28, 2026. FATEMEH BAHRAMI/ANADOLU VIA GETTY IMAGES

The federal government’s cyber defense agency is short-staffed, and Tehran is known for its retaliatory cyberattacks.


BY DAVID DIMOLFETTA
CYBERSECURITY REPORTER, NEXTGOV/FCW
FEBRUARY 28, 2026 06:14 PM ET

Coordinated U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iranian targets are putting renewed focus on how the United States integrates offensive cyber capabilities into the battlespace — and how prepared federal agencies are for retaliation at home.

Iran has shown a tendency to respond to overseas threats with cyber means, from defacing websites to spying on U.S. and allied targets. Tracking such actions and alerting the U.S. government and public is a job of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which has been operating with sharply reduced staffing due to a funding lapse for its parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security.

“This is a bad time for Washington’s cyber agency to be operating with limited staff,” said Annie Fixler, director of the Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a national security think tank.

That funding lapse comes after Trump-administration moves shrank CISA’s workforce by about one-third last year and degraded public-private collaboration mechanisms. This “limits the ability of the federal government to provide timely cyber threat information to the private sector,” Fixler said.

In the wake of the U.S. and Israeli airstrikes, American companies could see a “barrage” of low-level attacks like website defacements and distributed denial-of-service attacks, said Fixler. “Iran might also see some limited success against targets that do not have proper cyber hygiene — exposed edge devices with default passwords, for example.”

Other cyber experts said the U.S. should prepare for a mix of distributed denial-of-service campaigns, ransomware and hack-and-leak operations meant to send a message.

“While it’s not operating at the same technical level as China or Russia, Iranian-linked groups have carried out disruptive attacks against U.S. financial institutions, infrastructure providers and private sector companies,” said Tom Pace, a former Marine intelligence specialist and CEO of NetRise, a cybersecurity supply chain firm.

The conflict will likely see a surge in state-sponsored hacking activity, “specifically targeting operational technology and critical infrastructure through the exploitation of internet-facing industrial control systems and vulnerable [programmable logic controller] hardware,” said Brian Harrell, a former CISA official.

“Threat hunters should be working overtime right now. By combining disruptive attacks with psychological operations, Iran will seek to erode public trust in government institutions and project domestic strength during periods of heightened conflict,” he said.

Elisity CEO James Winebrenner echoed that advice. “We should be vigilant in protecting exposed [industrial controls systems] and expect heightened retaliatory activity in the coming days and weeks,” he said. In late 2023, Iran-linked hackers digitally defaced U.S. water treatment equipment.

Tehran may play up the effectiveness and scope of their cyberattacks, said Cynthia Kaiser, a former FBI cybersecurity deputy director who leads the Ransomware Research Center at Halcyon. Industry research has documented these theatrics.

“They’ll turn [an intrusion] into an information operation, and say, ‘Look, we compromised this entire facility,’ even though they compromised just a machine,” Kaiser said.

YouTube I Experiencing Service Issues

YouTube is currently experiencing intermittent service disruptions, causing videos not to load, playback errors, and accessibility issues for some users.

Current Issues
Many users are reporting problems with videos not loading, error messages like "This content isn't available," and difficulties accessing the platform on both web browsers and apps. Some users have noted that the issues are browser-specific, with videos sometimes working in incognito mode or on alternative browsers like Firefox. Others report problems with uploading videos, frozen view counts, and slow or interrupted playback.

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Scope of the Outage
The disruptions appear to be intermittent and geographically widespread, affecting multiple regions worldwide. Real-time outage maps show clusters of reports in major cities, indicating that the problem is not limited to a single location. Users may experience delays, intermittent service interruptions, or complete inability to access content during this period.

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Possible Causes
While YouTube has not officially confirmed the cause, the issues could be related to server-side problems, platform updates, or temporary technical glitches. Some users have found that disabling ad blockers or switching browsers temporarily resolves playback issues.

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What You Can DoTry a different browser or device to see if the issue persists.
Clear your browser cache and cookies to resolve loading errors.
Check your internet connection or switch networks if videos buffer slowly.
Log out and back into your Google account if you encounter login or upload issues.
Monitor real-time outage maps on sites like Downdetector or StatusGator for updates.

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YouTube is actively being monitored for these disruptions, and updates are expected as the platform works to resolve the issues. Users are advised to be patient and try temporary workarounds until the service stabilizes.

At least 9 killed as protesters storm US Consulate in Pakistan over killing of Iran's supreme leader

Paramilitary soldiers take positions at the U.S. Consulate after protesters stormed the building in Karachi, Pakistan, Sunday, March 1, 2026. Credit: AP/Ali Raza

By The Associated Press

Updated March 1, 2026 6:51 am


KARACHI, Pakistan — At least nine people were killed and about two dozen were wounded in violent clashes with police and paramilitary forces Sunday after hundreds of protesters stormed the U.S. Consulate in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, authorities said.

The violence came hours after the United States and Israel attacked Iran and killed the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Police and officials at a hospital in Karachi said at least 25 people were also wounded in the clashes and some of them were in critical condition.

Summaiya Syed Tariq, a police surgeon at the city's main government hospital, confirmed that initially six bodies and multiple injured people were brought to the facility. However, she said the death toll rose to nine after three critically wounded died.

The U.S. Embassy in Pakistan wrote on X that it was monitoring reports of ongoing demonstrations at the U.S. Consulates General in Karachi and Lahore, as well as calls for additional protests at the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad and the Consulate General in Peshawar. It advised U.S. citizens in Pakistan to monitor local news, stay aware of their surroundings, avoid large crowds and keep their travel registration with the U.S. government up to date.

Karachi is the capital of southern Sindh province and Pakistan’s largest city.
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Senior police official Irfan Baloch said protesters briefly attacked the perimeter of the U.S. Consulate but were later dispersed. He dismissed as baseless reports that any part of the consulate building was set on fire. However, he said protesters torched a nearby police post and smashed windows of the consulate before security forces arrived and regained control.

Witnesses said dozens of Shiite protesters remained gathered about a kilometer (half a mile) from the consulate, urging others to join them. They said one of the protesters had tried to burn a window of the consulate before security forces arrived there and dispersed the demonstrators.

Israeli strikes rock Tehran as Iran’s counterattacks widen after the killing of the supreme leader

Israeli strikes rock Tehran as Iran’s counterattacks widen after the killing of the supreme leader

The Israeli military said it was striking targets in central Tehran after clearing the path to the capital Saturday. Earlier, Iran fired missiles at targets in Israel and Gulf Arab states after vowing massive retaliation for the killing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei by the United States and Israel. (AP video by Saeed Sarmadi) (https://apnews.com/video/explosion-rocks-irans-capital-as-israel-says-its-targeting-tehran-after-strikes-kill-khamenei-bd474aba8d854b98b39609473f9c498f)

BY JON GAMBRELL, MELANIE LIDMAN, JOSH BOAK AND ERIC TUCKER

Updated 5:49 AM EST, March 1, 2026

Leer en español


DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — An enormous explosion rocked Iran’s capital Sunday as the Israeli military said it was targeting the heart of the city. Earlier, Iran fired missiles at an ever-widening list of targets in Israel and Gulf Arab states in retaliation for the killing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei by the United States and Israel.

The blast in Tehran — whose target was not immediately clear — sent a huge plume of smoke into the sky and shook the ground. It appeared centered in neighborhoods home to the country’s police headquarters and Iranian state television, as well as Tehran’s Revolutionary Court and a Defense Ministry building.

Saturday’s joint U.S.-Israel strikes on Iran opened a stunning new chapter in U.S. intervention, and carried the potential for retaliatory violence and a wider war, representing a startling flexing of military might for an American president who swept into office on an “America First” platform and vowed to keep out of “forever wars.” It was the second time in eight months that the Trump administration has used military force against the Islamic Republic.

The pope urges an end to Iran conflict

01-03-2026 02:50 PM

Ammon News -Pope Leo XIV said Sunday he was “profoundly concerned” about the U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran and urged both sides to “stop the spiral of violence before it becomes an irreparable abyss.”

In the first reaction to the attacks, the American pope called for the resumption of diplomacy and a “reasonable, authentic and responsible” dialogue based on justice. Weapons, he said, only sow “destruction, pain and death.”

“Faced with the possibility of a tragedy of enormous proportions, I make a heartfelt appeal to the parties involved to assume their moral responsibility to stop the spiral of violence before it becomes an irreparable abyss,” Leo said.

AP

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