Original Title: Clawed
Original Author: Dean W. Bal
Translated by: Peggy, BlockBeats

Editor's Note:

When personal experiences of life and death intertwine with metaphors of the rise and fall of national systems, political narratives become more than just abstract discussions of institutional frameworks; they transform into a profound emotional realization. This article uses the themes of a father's passing and a child's birth as a pretext to extend the personal insight that "death is a process" into a reflection on the current state of the American republic. According to the author, the ongoing conflict between artificial intelligence companies and the government is not an isolated event but a reflection of a long-term loosening of institutions and an imbalance in power structures.

The article focuses on the controversy between Anthropic and the U.S. defense system, discussing everything from contract terms and policy boundaries to threats posed by "supply chain risks." The issues at hand extend beyond the game between businesses and the government to a more fundamental question: In the era of cutting-edge artificial intelligence, who should hold control? Should it belong to private enterprises, administrative authorities, or some yet-immature public mechanism? When national security becomes a justification for power expansion and policy measures increasingly rely on temporary and coercive arrangements, do the rules and predictability of the republican system begin to wane?

Technological leaps and institutional changes can occur simultaneously, and their intersection often influences the trajectory of an era. The author questions the government's actions while retaining hope for future institutional reconstruction and reminds readers not to equate "democratic control" with "government control." In the context of rapid evolution in artificial intelligence and continuously reshaped governance models, this debate may merely be a prologue. How to achieve a new balance between security, efficiency, and freedom will become an important issue we face in the long term.

Below is the original text:

Over a decade ago, I sat beside my father and watched him pass away. Six months earlier, he was a vibrant person, stronger than I am today, biking faster and more resiliently than most twenty-somethings. Then one day, he underwent heart surgery, and from then on, he was never the same again. It was as if his soul had been drawn out, and the light in his eyes disappeared. Occasionally, he would regain some vitality, as if the familiar father had briefly returned to his gradually aging body, but these moments became fewer and fewer. His thoughts grew intermittent, and his voice became increasingly faint.

During those six months, he was in and out of the hospital repeatedly. On the last day, he was moved to hospice care. That day, he hardly said anything. In the final hours of his life, he seemed almost to have departed this world. He lay on the hospital bed, breathing gradually slowing, his voice growing weaker. Eventually, it became almost inaudible, leaving behind a disturbing "death rattle"—the result of a body that could no longer swallow. A body that cannot swallow can neither eat nor drink, and in some sense, it has given up its struggle.

My mother and I exchanged glances, both aware yet unable to articulate the obvious truth or to voice the questions that loomed in our minds. We knew time was running out. At this point, any words spoken or questions asked would offer no useful information; further inquiries would only add to the pain.

I had privately spoken with him more than once. I held his hand, trying to say goodbye. When my mother returned to the room, the three of us held hands. Ultimately, a machine emitted a long beep, signaling he had crossed some invisible line—one that was imperceptible to those in the room. Later that afternoon on December 26, 2014, my father passed away.

A few days later, eleven years later, on December 30, 2025, my son was born. I have witnessed both the occurrence of death and the birth of life. What I have learned is that neither is a momentary event, but rather an unfolding process. Birth is a series of awakenings, and death is a series of slumbers. My son took years to truly "be born," and my father took six months to truly "depart." Some people may even take decades to slowly die.

At some point in my life, I cannot pinpoint exactly when, the America we know, the American Republic, began its descent toward decline. Like most natural deaths, its causes are complex and intertwined. No single event, crisis, attack, president, party, law, ideology, individual, corporation, technology, blunder, betrayal, failure, miscalculation, or foreign adversary has "individually" caused the beginning of the decline, though all have played a role. I do not know which stage of this process we have reached, but I know we are already in the "hospice room." I have known this for some time, yet sometimes, like all mourners, I also find myself in denial. I prefer not to speak about it, as discussing it often causes pain.

However, if I do not acknowledge that we are sitting beside the sickbed today, I cannot complete my writing with the analytical rigor you expect. To honestly discuss the development of cutting-edge artificial intelligence and what kind of future we should construct, one cannot avoid the fact that the republic we know is on its deathbed. Only, there is no machine that will give us a final beep. We can only watch silently.

In American history, our republic has "died" and "reborn" multiple times. America has experienced more than one "founding." Perhaps we are standing on the threshold of another rebirth, turning the page on a new chapter of constant self-reinvention for the nation. I hope so. But it may also be that we lack the virtue and wisdom needed to support a new establishment, and a more realistic understanding is that we are slowly transitioning into a "post-republic" era of American governance. I do not claim to know the answer.

What I am about to write is about a confrontation between an artificial intelligence company and the U.S. government. I do not wish to exaggerate this. The "death" I intend to describe has been ongoing for more than half my life. The event I am writing about occurred last week and may be resolved to some extent within days.

I do not assert that this event "caused" the death of the republic, nor do I claim it "ushered in a new era." If it has any significance, it is merely that it has made the ongoing decline more apparent and harder for me to deny. I view last week’s events as the "death rattle" of the old republic, a sound emitted by a body that has given up its struggle.

As far as I know, the story goes like this: During the Biden administration, the AI company Anthropic reached an agreement with the Department of Defense (now referred to as the "Department of War," or DoW) to allow its AI system Claude to be used in classified environments. This agreement was expanded by the Trump administration in July 2025 (full disclosure: I served in the Trump administration at the time, but did not participate in this deal). Other language models were available for non-classified scenarios, but until recently, classified work—such as intelligence gathering and combat operations—could only use Claude.

It is worth noting that the agreement originally negotiated by Biden's team with Anthropic included two usage restrictions. First, Claude was not to be used for large-scale surveillance of Americans. Second, it was not to be used to control lethal autonomous weapons, meaning weapons that could operate entirely without human involvement throughout the identification, tracking, and killing processes. The Trump administration had the opportunity to review these terms when expanding the agreement and ultimately accepted them.

Trump officials stated that they changed their minds not out of a desire for large-scale surveillance or deployment of lethal autonomous weapons, but rather in opposition to the idea of private companies imposing restrictions on military technology usage. The government's change in attitude prompted the adoption of policy measures aimed at damaging or even destroying Anthropic—a company that may be one of the fastest-growing in the history of capitalism and is considered a leader in the global AI field, while the government constantly claims that AI is crucial for the nation's future. But we will return to this later.

The viewpoint proposed by the Trump administration is not without merit: it does sound somewhat inappropriate for private enterprises to set restrictions on military technology usage. However, in reality, thousands of private companies are doing just that. Every technological transaction between the military and private enterprises exists in the form of contracts (hence the term "defense contractor"), and these contracts typically contain operational restrictions (for instance, "system X may not be used in country Y," similar to clauses often found in Musk's Starlink), technical limitations (for example, "a certain aircraft is only certified for use under specific conditions"), and intellectual property restrictions ("the contractor owns and may reuse relevant technology intellectual property").

In some respects, Anthropic's terms resemble these traditional restrictions. For instance, the company does not oppose lethal autonomous weapons themselves, but believes that existing cutting-edge AI systems are not yet capable of independently deciding matters of life and death for humans. This is quite similar to "aircraft certification restrictions."

But the key difference lies in the fact that the restrictions imposed by Anthropic in contractual form are more akin to policy limitations rather than technical limitations. For example, "this aircraft is not certified to fly above a certain altitude" versus "you may not fly above a certain altitude." The military perhaps should not accept such terms, nor should private enterprises set them. But the Biden administration accepted them, and the Trump administration initially accepted them until it later reversed course.

This in itself indicates that such terms are not absurd violations. No law states that contracts can only have technical restrictions and not policy restrictions. The contracts are not illegal, and perhaps they are simply viewed in hindsight as unwise. Even if you support a position against large-scale surveillance and lethal autonomous weapons, you may still find that defense contracts are not the best tool for achieving policy goals. Under the conventional rules of the republic, the way to achieve new policies is through legislation.

However, "through legislation" has increasingly become a joke in contemporary America. If you genuinely wish to achieve a certain outcome, legislation is no longer a prioritized path. Governance is becoming more informal, reliance on temporary measures is increasing, administrative power is swelling, and the mismatch between policy tools and their goals is growing.

The Trump administration claimed their change of stance was based on two concerns: first, that Anthropic might withdraw its services at a critical moment; second, that as a subcontractor, Anthropic's terms could constrain other military contractors. Coupled with the government's view of Anthropic as a political opponent (which they may have judged correctly), the military suddenly realized it depended on a company it did not trust.

The rational course of action should have been to cancel the contract and publicly explain the reasons, while avoiding similar situations in the future through regulatory measures. However, the Department of War insisted that the contract must allow for "all legitimate uses" and threatened to classify Anthropic as a "supply chain risk." This designation is typically only applied to companies controlled by foreign adversaries, such as Huawei. The Secretary of War went further, threatening to bar all military contractors from having "any business relationship" with Anthropic.

This is almost equivalent to declaring "corporate murder" against a company. Even if the bullets are not necessarily fatal, they are enough to send a signal: do business on our terms, or your business ends.

This touches upon the core principle of the American republic: private property. If the military told Google, "sell global personalized search data, or be classified as a risk," it bears no fundamental difference from what is currently happening.所谓私有财产，不过是在国家安全名义下可被征用的资源。

This move will raise the capital costs for the entire AI industry, weaken the international credibility of American AI, and may even harm the profit prospects of the AI industry itself.

With each presidential transition, American policymaking becomes ever more unpredictable, brutal, and arbitrary. It is hard to judge when the order of freedom evaporated.

Even if the Secretary of War withdraws the threat, the damage has already been done. The government has indicated that as long as you refuse to comply, you may be viewed as an enemy. This constitutes a deeper erosion of American political culture.

Moreover, this marks the first true public debate centered around "where should control of cutting-edge AI reside." Our public institutions exhibit disorder, malice, and lack of strategic clarity. The failure of the political elite is not a new phenomenon, but rather an intensifying theme over the past twenty years: "the same as before, but obviously worse."

Perhaps the next phase of reconstruction will be closely tied to advanced AI. In the future of institutional building, do not equate "democratic control" with "government control." The gap between the two has never been more evident than it is today.

Regardless of what the future holds, we must ensure that large-scale surveillance and autonomous weapons do not erode our freedoms. I appreciate that AI laboratories are holding the line. In the coming decades, our freedoms may be more fragile than we imagine.

Everyone must choose the future for which they are willing to fight or defend. When making a choice, please ignore the clamor of that "death rattle" and maintain independent thought. You are entering a brand new era of institutional building.

But before that, please take a moment to mourn for that once-great republic.

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