---
type: source
title: "Hegseth AI Strategy Memo Mandates 'Any Lawful Use' Language in All DoD AI Contracts Within 180 Days"
author: "DefenseScoop / Holland & Knight (Defense AI Strategy analysis)"
url: https://defensescoop.com/2026/01/13/hegseth-ai-tech-hubs-reorganization-dod-dow/
date: 2026-01-12
domain: grand-strategy
secondary_domains: [ai-alignment]
format: news
status: processed
processed_by: leo
processed_date: 2026-04-29
priority: high
tags: [hegseth, DoD, any-lawful-use, AI-procurement-mandate, 180-day-deadline, responsible-AI-redefinition, state-mandate, governance-elimination, policy]
intake_tier: research-task
extraction_model: "anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.5"
---

## Content

On January 9-12, 2026, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth issued an AI strategy memorandum accompanied by three coordinated DoD memoranda. Key provision: the undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment must incorporate standard "any lawful use" language into any DoD AI procurement contract within 180 days (deadline approximately July 2026).

**Key mandates:**
- All DoD AI contracts must include "any lawful use" language within 180 days of January 2026
- New CDAO directed to create "model objectivity" benchmarks as primary procurement criterion within 90 days
- Pentagon defines "responsible AI" as: "objectively truthful AI capabilities employed securely and within the laws governing the activities of the department"

**What the redefinition removes:** The Biden-era definition of "responsible AI" included safety constraints, harm prevention, and limits on autonomous lethal decision-making. The Hegseth definition removes all of these, replacing them with: (1) factual accuracy ("objectively truthful"), (2) secure deployment, (3) legal compliance. No harm prevention above legal minimum. No safety constraints beyond law.

**Connection to Anthropic conflict:** The Hegseth memo was issued January 12, 2026. Anthropic's existing DoD contract required safety guardrails that conflicted with "any lawful use" terms. Anthropic refused to update. Designation as supply chain risk: February 2026. The sequence: Hegseth mandates Tier 3 → Anthropic refuses → designated supply chain risk. The designation was the enforcement mechanism for the mandate.

**Connection to Google deal:** Google's deal was signed April 28, 2026 — approximately 107 days into the 180-day window. Google accepted "any lawful use" terms. The 180-day clock made continued negotiation for Tier 2 terms structurally untenable.

**Context: DoD renamed "Department of War":** Hegseth's accompanying memos also reorganized DoD's AI and tech hubs and referred to the department as "Department of War" — signaling a shift from the Biden-era emphasis on responsible AI integration toward speed and capability maximization.

## Agent Notes

**Why this matters:** This is the most important structural finding of the April 29 session. The Hegseth mandate reframes everything that has been described as "market equilibrium" (MAD mechanism) and "competitive pressure" driving Tier 3 convergence. The mandate means: Tier 3 is not just the market equilibrium — it is a REGULATORY REQUIREMENT. Companies cannot sign DoD AI contracts at Tier 1 or Tier 2 terms without violating DoD procurement policy. The mandate makes voluntary governance erosion structurally equivalent to mandatory governance elimination.

**What surprised me:** This mandate was issued in January 2026 and has been operating in the background of every governance analysis since then, but I had not previously archived it as a distinct mechanism source. The Anthropic conflict was well-documented; the mandate as the CAUSE of that conflict was underanalyzed. The Hegseth memo is the primary mechanism; MAD is secondary. The mandate also provides a definite deadline (July 2026) that creates a governance event horizon.

**What I expected but didn't find:** Any resistance mechanism within DoD to the mandate. DoD policy is unitary once the Secretary issues a memo — there's no internal "market" that moderates the mandate. This means the enabling conditions framework (for external governance) is irrelevant for the DoD internal procurement policy. The mandate operates by fiat, not by incentive alignment.

**KB connections:**
- [[mandatory-legislative-governance-closes-technology-coordination-gap-while-voluntary-governance-widens-it]] — the Hegseth mandate is a case of MANDATORY governance ELIMINATING constraints (inverted: mandatory governance can also mandate governance absence, not just governance presence)
- [[mutually-assured-deregulation-makes-voluntary-ai-governance-structurally-untenable-through-competitive-disadvantage-conversion]] — MAD is now a secondary mechanism; the Hegseth mandate is primary. The existing claim should be enriched to note: MAD operates within the market layer; Hegseth mandate operates at the policy layer and is a stronger forcing function.
- [[frontier-ai-capability-national-security-criticality-prevents-government-from-enforcing-own-governance-instruments]] — the Hegseth mandate is the opposite pattern: government IS enforcing its own instrument, but the instrument is governance-elimination rather than governance-implementation

**Extraction hints:**
- Primary extract: "Hegseth's January 2026 'any lawful use' mandate converts voluntary military AI governance erosion from market equilibrium (MAD mechanism) to state-mandated elimination, because DoD policy requires removal of vendor safety restrictions beyond legal minimums in all AI contracts — making Tier 1 and Tier 2 terms structurally untenable not through competitive pressure but through procurement exclusion." Confidence: proven (the mandate exists in writing, the Anthropic designation and Google deal confirm enforcement). Domain: grand-strategy.
- Secondary extract: "Hegseth's redefinition of 'responsible AI' as 'objectively truthful AI employed within laws' is an operative redefinition that removes harm prevention from the definition — enabling any legally-compliant use of AI as 'responsible' regardless of harm." Confidence: proven (the definition is in the memo). Domain: grand-strategy.
- The July 2026 deadline is a concrete governance event: by July 2026, all DoD AI contracts must be at Tier 3 terms. This is the end state of the voluntary-to-mandatory-elimination transition.

**Context:** The mandate was issued at the start of the Trump/Vance administration's defense AI posture. It is part of a broader reorientation from Biden-era AI safety emphasis to "AI-first" speed maximization. The "Department of War" renaming is symbolic of the same reorientation. The governance implications are structural: a future administration could reverse the mandate, but every contract signed at "any lawful use" terms during this period locks in those terms until contract renewal.

## Curator Notes

PRIMARY CONNECTION: [[mutually-assured-deregulation-makes-voluntary-ai-governance-structurally-untenable-through-competitive-disadvantage-conversion]]

WHY ARCHIVED: The Hegseth mandate is a distinct causal mechanism from MAD — state power, not market pressure, driving Tier 3 convergence. This source is necessary for extracting the mandate as a standalone claim and for enriching the MAD claim to properly distinguish market-mechanism from policy-mandate pathways.

EXTRACTION HINT: The extractor should create two claims from this source: (1) the mandate as a standalone mechanism claim (distinct from MAD); (2) Hegseth's "responsible AI" redefinition as a definitional claim that operationally removes harm prevention from the governance vocabulary. Both are proven-confidence claims with primary source documentation (the memo itself). The 180-day deadline is the concrete evaluability hook.
