As I have said since the beginning, this is about the principle of the thing for both parties. Anthropic is saying private firms should be able to set the terms on which they offer products and services to the government. USG is saying no, private firms may not set terms of use. In other words, the USG is saying that companies who provide services to the military are not quite “contractors” but instead assets to be deployed at will by the government, only to be constrained by the government’s interpretation of the law. There is no difference in principle from the government saying “we unilaterally dictate the price of every service and product we procure.” After all, price is just another term in a contract. This is why the government’s stance has a certain appeal, but is ultimately conceptually incoherent and a fundamental departure from the principles of ordered liberty that you and I both share. The “coloring within the lines of our republic” response is for the government to say, fine, we won’t give you business and we will give business to your competitors. Perhaps even to make a public stink about it. I don’t know a single person who objects to that or thinks it’s illegitimate for the government to do. But instead what the government is doing is trying to destroy Anthropic, using policy measures reserved only for foreign adversaries. This is obviously a different-in-kind response, and all principled classical liberals should reject it outright. This is not hard, or at least it should not be. In short: You are focusing on the wrong thing. Of course DoW is free to have a principle that they will accept no limitations on their use of technology. The problem is that their policy response is not just doing that, but instead attacking the basic principles of private property: that people have the right to set the terms of their engagement with the government.