In brief: While the USA and allied countries are already testing AI models for cyber defense, the Trump administration is selectively controlling European access, creating strategic asymmetries in NATO.
The USA is deliberately limiting European NATO allies’ access to its own AI models such as Anthropic’s Claude Mythos, while the Trump administration and allied intelligence services already have access to these cybersecurity tools. This creates strategic dependencies and tensions within the alliance shortly before the NATO summit in Ankara.
Tech companies such as Anthropic and OpenAI have recently announced new AI models that can find and exploit security vulnerabilities better than human analysts. These systems can be used both to strengthen cyber defense and to launch attacks on an unprecedented scale.
The NSA and the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) are already testing Anthropic’s Claude Mythos model for digital espionage and cyber defense. In contrast, European countries — including Germany — were denied access for a long time. Only after G7 discussions in June and interventions by the Trump administration was Anthropic initially prevented from licensing Mythos to foreigners in June, before these export controls were later lifted. In the meantime, Anthropic has expanded collaboration to 150 organizations in 15 countries, including the EU. The United Kingdom received early access.
At the same time, the White House has restricted the rollout of OpenAI’s latest models to a small group of approved US companies. This selective control by the Trump administration over access to advanced AI tools has frustrated European allies and led to a rare warning from Five Eyes partners about cyber threats posed by AI-driven attacks.
For CISOs, this situation presents two challenges: First, significant capability gaps are emerging between US and European security teams in AI-driven threat detection. Second, cybersecurity is increasingly becoming a geopolitical trade issue, making access to critical defense technology dependent on political decisions. Although the official NATO agenda mentions “new and disruptive technologies,” concrete access negotiations are taking place behind the scenes of the upcoming Ankara summit.
Source: www.politico.com · Published 4 July 2026
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