The controversy isn't about defending one's country, it's about you and the parent comment author assuming what this is all about without reading the article.

The core of the issue about autonomous use of AI in mass surveillance of Americans and autonomous use of AI in automated weapons that make kill decisions. Anthropic is perfectly fine with working with the War Department and "defending one's nation".

But they are not okay with their AI being used to make a mockery of the 4th amendment and making automated kill/no-kill decisions about actual human lives.