In general, my sense of the US national security state is that it will often first ask nicely for the things it wants. They don’t make open threats, because they want you to consent freely and enthusiastically. Threats would undermine that spirit of collaboration, and they would also potentially enable the person being threatened to brace for whatever is threatened, undermining the effectiveness of the threat.
If you decline, they will then prioritize going about getting what they want using an assortment of coercive means. Sometimes, you may find that were high enough on the list to be asked, but not high enough to warrant coercive means sufficient to get what they want at the present time.
Other times, some variation of this happens:
“I think you should come work for us, there’s a lot we could accomplish together, you just need to do some things for me” “And if I say no?” “No pressure, I’ll just call my boss and say you said no.” “That’s it?” “What happens after that isn’t up to me, but they probably won’t have me ask again.”
Imagine how it goes when “we don’t want someone who declines to help to know that we’re interested in the substance we asked about” is added to the list of government priorities.
In general, my sense of the US national security state is that it will often first ask nicely for the things it wants.
This may have been true in prior administrations, but arguments based on institutional continuity and honor are poorly calibrated now that many senior people have resigned or been fired, replaced by those who express more personal loyalty to the president.
Ok a lot suddenly makes sense within the framework I laid out above.
If accurate, this can be read as follows: US government got scared of something they didn’t want to admit to, so they told anthropic to take the action they wanted.
Anthropic requested a reason (this is ‘bad form’, kind of like a comms provider asking for a warrant instead of just signing a voluntary cooperation agreement), so they went to a contractor and said ‘give us something’ which Amazon duly did.
Anthropic was then presented with an export control tied to a flimsy and overbroad justification. The expectation being that the desired behavior (model offline) will happen, the courts might or might not reverse it later, but by then they’ll hopefully have a stronger solution.
In general, my sense of the US national security state is that it will often first ask nicely for the things it wants. They don’t make open threats, because they want you to consent freely and enthusiastically. Threats would undermine that spirit of collaboration, and they would also potentially enable the person being threatened to brace for whatever is threatened, undermining the effectiveness of the threat.
If you decline, they will then prioritize going about getting what they want using an assortment of coercive means. Sometimes, you may find that were high enough on the list to be asked, but not high enough to warrant coercive means sufficient to get what they want at the present time.
Other times, some variation of this happens:
“I think you should come work for us, there’s a lot we could accomplish together, you just need to do some things for me” “And if I say no?” “No pressure, I’ll just call my boss and say you said no.” “That’s it?” “What happens after that isn’t up to me, but they probably won’t have me ask again.”
Imagine how it goes when “we don’t want someone who declines to help to know that we’re interested in the substance we asked about” is added to the list of government priorities.
This may have been true in prior administrations, but arguments based on institutional continuity and honor are poorly calibrated now that many senior people have resigned or been fired, replaced by those who express more personal loyalty to the president.
https://www.economist.com/briefing/2026/06/14/donald-trumps-blocking-of-anthropic-is-capricious-and-chaotic
Ok a lot suddenly makes sense within the framework I laid out above.
If accurate, this can be read as follows: US government got scared of something they didn’t want to admit to, so they told anthropic to take the action they wanted.
Anthropic requested a reason (this is ‘bad form’, kind of like a comms provider asking for a warrant instead of just signing a voluntary cooperation agreement), so they went to a contractor and said ‘give us something’ which Amazon duly did.
Anthropic was then presented with an export control tied to a flimsy and overbroad justification. The expectation being that the desired behavior (model offline) will happen, the courts might or might not reverse it later, but by then they’ll hopefully have a stronger solution.