Neoconservatism

Template:Short description Template:Redirect-distinguish Template:About Template:Use American English Template:Use dmy dates Template:Conservatism US Template:Conservatism UK Neoconservatism (colloquially neocon) is a political movement which began in the United States during the 1960s among liberal hawks who became disenchanted with the increasingly pacifist Democratic Party along with the growing New Left and counterculture of the 1960s. Neoconservatives typically advocate the unilateral promotion of democracy and interventionism in international relations together with a militaristic and realist philosophy of "peace through strength". They are known for espousing opposition to communism and radical politics.<ref name="britannica">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="merriam-webster">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Many adherents of neoconservatism became politically influential during Republican presidential administrations from the 1960s to the 2000s, peaking in influence during the presidency of George W. Bush, when they played a major role in promoting and planning the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Prominent neoconservatives in the Bush administration included Paul Wolfowitz, Elliott Abrams, Richard Perle, Paul Bremer, and Douglas Feith.

Although U.S. vice president Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had not self-identified as neoconservatives, they worked closely alongside neoconservative officials in designing key aspects of the Bush administration's foreign policy; especially in their support for Israel, promotion of American influence in the Arab world and launching the war on terror.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The Bush administration's domestic and foreign policies were heavily influenced by major ideologues affiliated with neoconservatism, such as Bernard Lewis, Lulu Schwartz, Richard and Daniel Pipes, David Horowitz, and Robert Kagan.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Critics of neoconservatism have used the term to describe foreign policy and war hawks who support aggressive militarism or neocolonialism. Historically speaking, the term neoconservative refers to Americans who moved from the anti-Stalinist left to conservatism during the 1960s and 1970s.<ref name="Vaïsse">Template:Cite book</ref> The movement had its intellectual roots in the magazine Commentary, edited by Norman Podhoretz.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> They spoke out against the New Left, and in that way helped define the movement.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Terminology

The term neoconservative was popularized in the United States during 1973 by the socialist leader Michael Harrington, who used the term to define Daniel Bell, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and Irving Kristol, whose ideologies differed from Harrington's.<ref name="harrington">Template:Cite journal

• Cited in: Template:Cite book
• Reprinted as chapter 11 in Harrington's 1976 book The Twilight of Capitalism, pp. 165–272.</ref> Earlier during 1973, he had described some of the same ideas in a brief contribution to a symposium on welfare sponsored by Commentary.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

The neoconservative label was adopted by Irving Kristol in his 1979 article "Confessions of a True, Self-Confessed 'NeoconservativeTemplate:'".<ref name="goldberg">Template:Cite journal</ref> His ideas have been influential since the 1950s, when he co-founded and edited the magazine Encounter.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Another source was Norman Podhoretz, editor of the magazine Commentary, from 1960 to 1995. By 1982, Podhoretz was terming himself a neoconservative in The New York Times Magazine article titled "The Neoconservative Anguish over Reagan's Foreign Policy".<ref name="Gerson_PR">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

The term itself was the product of a rejection among formerly self-identified liberals of what they considered a growing leftward turn of the Democratic Party in the 1970s. Neoconservatives perceived in the new left liberalism an ideological effort to distance the Democratic Party and American liberalism from Cold War liberalism as it was espoused by former Presidents such as Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. After the Vietnam War, the anti-communist, internationalist and interventionist roots of this Cold War liberalism seemed increasingly brittle to the neoconservatives. As a consequence they migrated to the Republican Party and formed one pillar of the Reagan Coalition and of the conservative movement. Hence, they became Neo-conservatives.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

History

File:HenryJackson.jpg

Senator Henry M. Jackson, an inspiration for neoconservative foreign policy during the 1970s

According to James Nuechterlein, prior to the formation of the movement, all future neoconservatives endorsed the civil rights movement, racial integration, and Martin Luther King Jr.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Neoconservatism was initiated by liberals' repudiation of the Cold War and by the "New Politics" of the American New Left, which Norman Podhoretz said was too sympathetic to the counterculture and too alienated from the majority of the population, and by the repudiation of "anti-anticommunism" by liberals, which included substantial endorsement of Marxist–Leninist politics by the New Left during the late 1960s. Some neoconservatives were particularly alarmed by what they believed were the antisemitic sentiments of Black Power advocates.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Irving Kristol edited the journal The Public Interest (1965–2005), featuring economists and political scientists, which emphasized ways that government planning in the liberal state had produced unintended harmful consequences.<ref>Irving Kristol, "Forty good years", Public Interest, Spring 2005, Issue 159, pp. 5–11 is Kristol's retrospective in the final issue.</ref> Some early neoconservative political figures were disillusioned Democratic politicians and intellectuals, such as Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who served in the Nixon and Ford administrations, and Jeane Kirkpatrick, who served as United States Ambassador to the United Nations in the Reagan administration. Some left-wing academics such as Frank Meyer and James Burnham eventually became associated with the conservative movement at this time.<ref name="auto">Template:Cite book</ref>

A substantial number of neoconservatives were originally moderate socialists who were originally associated with the moderate wing of the Socialist Party of America (SP) and its successor party, the Social Democrats, USA (SDUSA). Max Shachtman, a former Trotskyist theorist who developed strong feelings of antipathy towards the New Left, had numerous devotees in the SDUSA with strong links to George Meany's AFL-CIO. Following Shachtman and Meany, this faction led the SP to oppose immediate withdrawal from the Vietnam War and oppose George McGovern in the Democratic primary race and, to some extent, the general election. They also chose to cease their own party-building and concentrated on working within the Democratic Party, eventually influencing it through the Democratic Leadership Council.<ref>Justin Vaïsse, Neoconservatism: The Biography of a Movement (Harvard University Press, 2010), pp. 214–19</ref> Thus the Socialist Party dissolved in 1972, and the SDUSA emerged that year. (Most of the left-wing of the party, led by Michael Harrington, immediately abandoned the SDUSA.)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> SDUSA leaders associated with neoconservatism include Carl Gershman, Penn Kemble, Joshua Muravchik and Bayard Rustin.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Jack Ross, The Socialist Party of America: A Complete History (University of Nebraska Press, 2015), the entire Chapter 17 entitled "Social Democrats USA and the Rise of Neoconservatism Template:Webarchive"</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Norman Podhoretz's magazine Commentary, originally a journal of liberalism, became a major publication for neoconservatives during the 1970s. Commentary published an article by Jeane Kirkpatrick, an early and prototypical neoconservative.

Rejecting the American New Left and McGovern's New Politics

As the policies of the New Left made the Democrats increasingly leftist, these neoconservative intellectuals became disillusioned with President Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society domestic programs. The influential 1970 bestseller The Real Majority by Ben Wattenberg expressed that the "real majority" of the electorate endorsed economic interventionism but also social conservatism and that it could be disastrous for Democrats to adopt liberal positions on certain social and crime issues.<ref name="mason">Template:Cite book</ref>

The neoconservatives rejected the countercultural New Left and what they considered anti-Americanism in the non-interventionism of the activism against the Vietnam War. After the anti-war faction took control of the party during 1972 and nominated George McGovern, the Democrats among the neoconservatives endorsed Washington Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson for his unsuccessful 1972 and 1976 campaigns for president. Among those who worked for Jackson were the incipient neoconservatives Paul Wolfowitz, Doug Feith, and Richard Perle.<ref>Justin Vaïsse, Neoconservatism: The Biography of a Movement (2010) ch 3.</ref> During the late 1970s, neoconservatives tended to endorse Ronald Reagan, the Republican who promised to confront Soviet expansionism. Neoconservatives organized in the American Enterprise Institute and The Heritage Foundation to counter the liberal establishment.<ref>Arin, Kubilay Yado: Think Tanks, the Brain Trusts of US Foreign Policy. Wiesbaden: VS Springer 2013.</ref> Author Keith Preston named the successful effort on behalf of neoconservatives such as George Will and Irving Kristol to cancel Reagan's 1980 nomination of Mel Bradford, a Southern Paleoconservative academic whose regionalist focus and writings about Abraham Lincoln and Reconstruction alienated the more cosmopolitan and progress-oriented neoconservatives, to the leadership of the National Endowment for the Humanities in favor of longtime Democrat William Bennett as emblematic of the neoconservative movement establishing hegemony over mainstream American conservatism.<ref name="auto"/>

In another (2004) article, Michael Lind also wrote:<ref name="lind">Template:Cite news</ref>

Neoconservatism ... originated in the 1970s as a movement of anti-Soviet liberals and social democrats in the tradition of Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Humphrey and Henry ('Scoop') Jackson, many of whom preferred to call themselves 'paleoliberals.' [After the end of the Cold War] ... many 'paleoliberals' drifted back to the Democratic center ... Today's neocons are a shrunken remnant of the original broad neocon coalition. Nevertheless, the origins of their ideology on the left are still apparent. The fact that most of the younger neocons were never on the left is irrelevant; they are the intellectual (and, in the case of William Kristol and John Podhoretz, the literal) heirs of older ex-leftists.{{#if:|{{#if:|}}

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Leo Strauss and his students

C. Bradley Thompson, a professor at Clemson University, claims that most influential neoconservatives refer explicitly to the theoretical ideas in the philosophy of Leo Strauss (1899–1973),<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> although there are several writers who claim that in doing so they may draw upon meaning that Strauss himself did not endorse. Eugene Sheppard notes: "Much scholarship tends to understand Strauss as an inspirational founder of American neoconservatism".<ref>Eugene R. Sheppard, Leo Strauss and the politics of exile: the making of a political philosopher (2005), p. 1.</ref> Strauss was a refugee from Nazi Germany who taught at the New School for Social Research in New York (1938–1948) and the University of Chicago (1949–1969).<ref>Allan Bloom, "Leo Strauss: September 20, 1899 – October 18, 1973", Political Theory, November 1974, Vol. 2 Issue 4, pp. 372–92, an obituary and appreciation by one of his prominent students.</ref>

Strauss asserted that "the crisis of the West consists in the West's having become uncertain of its purpose". His solution was a restoration of the vital ideas and faith that in the past had sustained the moral purpose of the West. The Greek classics (classical republican and modern republican), political philosophy and the Judeo-Christian heritage are the essentials of the Great Tradition in Strauss's work.<ref>John P. East, "Leo Strauss and American Conservatism", Modern Age, Winter 1977, Vol. 21 Issue 1, pp. 2–19 online Template:Webarchive.</ref><ref>"Leo Strauss's Perspective on Modern Politics" Template:Webarchive – American Enterprise Institute</ref> Strauss emphasized the spirit of the Greek classics and Thomas G. West (1991) argues that for Strauss the American Founding Fathers were correct in their understanding of the classics in their principles of justice.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

For Strauss, political community is defined by convictions about justice and happiness rather than by sovereignty and force. A classical liberal, he repudiated the philosophy of John Locke as a bridge to 20th-century historicism and nihilism and instead defended liberal democracy as closer to the spirit of the classics than other modern regimes.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> For Strauss, the American awareness of ineradicable evil in human nature and hence the need for morality, was a beneficial outgrowth of the pre-modern Western tradition.<ref>Thomas G. West, "Leo Strauss and the American Founding", Review of Politics, Winter 1991, Vol. 53 Issue 1, pp. 157–72.</ref> O'Neill (2009) notes that Strauss wrote little about American topics, but his students wrote a great deal and that Strauss's influence caused his students to reject historicism and positivism as morally relativist positions.<ref name=ZZ4>Catherine H. Zuckert, Michael P. Zuckert, The Truth about Leo Strauss: Political Philosophy and American Democracy, University of Chicago Press, 2008, p. 4ff.</ref> They instead promoted a so-called Aristotelian perspective on America that produced a qualified defense of its liberal constitutionalism.<ref>Johnathan O'Neill, "Straussian constitutional history and the Straussian political project", Rethinking History, December 2009, Vol. 13 Issue 4, pp. 459–78.</ref> Strauss's emphasis on moral clarity led the Straussians to develop an approach to international relations that Catherine and Michael Zuckert (2008) call Straussian Wilsonianism (or Straussian idealism), the defense of liberal democracy in the face of its vulnerability.<ref name=ZZ4/><ref>Irving Kristol, The Neo-conservative Persuasion: Selected Essays, 1942-2009, Basic Books, 2011, p. 217.</ref>

Strauss influenced The Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol, William Bennett, Newt Gingrich, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, as well as Paul Wolfowitz.<ref>Barry F. Seidman and Neil J. Murphy, eds. Toward a new political humanism (2004), p. 197.</ref><ref>Sheppard, Leo Strauss and the politics of exile: the making of a political philosopher (2005), pp. 1–2.</ref>

Jeane Kirkpatrick

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Jeane Kirkpatrick

A theory of neoconservative foreign policy during the final years of the Cold War was articulated by Jeane Kirkpatrick in "Dictatorships and Double Standards",<ref>Jeane Kirkpatrick, J (November 1979). "Dictatorships and Double Standards" Template:Webarchive, Commentary Magazine 68, No. 5.</ref> published in Commentary Magazine during November 1979. Kirkpatrick criticized the foreign policy of Jimmy Carter, which endorsed détente with the Soviet Union. She later served the Reagan Administration as Ambassador to the United Nations.<ref>Noah, T. (8 December 2006). Jeane Kirkpatrick, Realist Template:Webarchive. Slate Magazine. Retrieved 8 July 2012.</ref>

Skepticism towards democracy promotion

In "Dictatorships and Double Standards", Kirkpatrick distinguished between authoritarian regimes and the totalitarian regimes such as the Soviet Union. She suggested that in some countries democracy was not tenable and the United States had a choice between endorsing authoritarian governments, which might evolve into democracies, or Marxist–Leninist regimes, which she argued had never been ended once they achieved totalitarian control. In such tragic circumstances, she argued that allying with authoritarian governments might be prudent. Kirkpatrick argued that by demanding rapid liberalization in traditionally autocratic countries, the Carter administration had delivered those countries to Marxist–Leninists that were even more repressive. She further accused the Carter administration of a "double standard" and of never having applied its rhetoric on the necessity of liberalization to communist governments. The essay compares traditional autocracies and Communist regimes:

[Traditional autocrats] do not disturb the habitual rhythms of work and leisure, habitual places of residence, habitual patterns of family and personal relations. Because the miseries of traditional life are familiar, they are bearable to ordinary people who, growing up in the society, learn to cope.{{#if:|{{#if:|}}

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[Revolutionary Communist regimes] claim jurisdiction over the whole life of the society and make demands for change that so violate internalized values and habits that inhabitants flee by the tens of thousands.{{#if:|{{#if:|}}

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Kirkpatrick concluded that while the United States should encourage liberalization and democracy in autocratic countries, it should not do so when the government risks violent overthrow and should expect gradual change rather than immediate transformation.<ref name="nprkirkpatrick">Template:Cite news</ref> She wrote: "No idea holds greater sway in the mind of educated Americans than the belief that it is possible to democratize governments, anytime and anywhere, under any circumstances ... Decades, if not centuries, are normally required for people to acquire the necessary disciplines and habits. In Britain, the road [to democratic government] took seven centuries to traverse. ... The speed with which armies collapse, bureaucracies abdicate, and social structures dissolve once the autocrat is removed frequently surprises American policymakers".<ref name="econkirkpatrick">Template:Cite news</ref> Template:Anchor

1990s

During the 1990s, neoconservatives were once again opposed to the foreign policy establishment, both during the Republican Administration of President George H. W. Bush and that of his Democratic successor, President Bill Clinton. Many critics charged that the neoconservatives lost their influence as a result of the end of the Soviet Union.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

After the decision of George H. W. Bush to leave Saddam Hussein in power after the first Iraq War during 1991, many neoconservatives considered this policy and the decision not to endorse indigenous dissident groups such as the Kurds and Shiites in their 1991–1992 resistance to Hussein as a betrayal of democratic principles.<ref name="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174894">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name=Tucker2009>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=Hirsh2004>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name=Wing2012>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name=Podhoretz2006>Template:Cite news</ref>

Some of those same targets of criticism would later become fierce advocates of neoconservative policies. During 1992, referring to the first Iraq War, then United States Secretary of Defense and future Vice President Richard Cheney said:

I would guess if we had gone in there, I would still have forces in Baghdad today. We'd be running the country. We would not have been able to get everybody out and bring everybody home.

And the question in my mind is how many additional American casualties is Saddam [Hussein] worth? And the answer is not that damned many. So, I think we got it right, both when we decided to expel him from Kuwait, but also when the president made the decision that we'd achieved our objectives and we were not going to go get bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>{{#if:|{{#if:|}}

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A key neoconservative policy-forming document, A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm (commonly known as the "Clean Break" report) was published in 1996 by a study group of American-Jewish neoconservative strategists led by Richard Perle on the behest of newly-elected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The report called for a new, more aggressive Middle East policy on the part of the United States in defense of the interests of Israel, including the removal of Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and the containment of Syria through a series of proxy wars, the outright rejection of any solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict that would include a Palestinian state, and an alliance between Israel, Turkey and Jordan against Iraq, Syria and Iran. Former United States Assistant Secretary of Defense and leading neoconservative Richard Perle was the "Study Group Leader", but the final report included ideas from fellow neoconservatives, pro-Israel right-wingers and affiliates of Netanyahu's Likud party, such as Douglas Feith, James Colbert, Charles Fairbanks Jr., Jonathan Torop, David Wurmser, Meyrav Wurmser, and IASPS president Robert Loewenberg.<ref>"A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm Template:Webarchive" text states, "The main substantive ideas in this paper emerge from a discussion in which prominent opinion makers, including Richard Perle, James Colbert, Charles Fairbanks, Jr., Douglas Feith, Robert Loewenberg, David Wurmser, and Meyrav Wurmser participated."</ref>

Within a few years of the Gulf War in Iraq, many neoconservatives were endorsing the ousting of Saddam Hussein. On 19 February 1998, an open letter to President Clinton was published, signed by dozens of pundits, many identified with neoconservatism and later related groups such as the Project for the New American Century, urging decisive action to remove Saddam from power.<ref>Solarz, Stephen, et al. "Open Letter to the President Template:Webarchive", 19 February 1998, online at IraqWatch.org. Retrieved 16 September 2006.</ref>

Neoconservatives were also members of the so-called "Blue Team", which argued for a confrontational policy toward the People's Republic of China (the communist government of mainland China) and for strong military and diplomatic endorsement of the Republic of China (also known as Taiwan), as they believed that China will be a threat to the United States in the future.

Early 2000s: Administration of George W. Bush and Bush Doctrine

Template:See also The Bush campaign and the early Bush administration did not exhibit strong endorsement of neoconservative principles. As a presidential candidate, Bush had argued for a restrained foreign policy, stating his opposition to the idea of nation-building.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Also early in the administration, some neoconservatives criticized Bush's administration as insufficiently supportive of Israel and suggested Bush's foreign policies were not substantially different from those of President Clinton.<ref>Template:Cite news Template:Dead linkTemplate:Cbignore</ref>

File:Hosni Mubarak with George W. Bush.jpg

During November 2010, former U.S. President George W. Bush (here with the former President of Egypt Hosni Mubarak at Camp David in 2002) wrote in his memoir Decision Points that Mubarak endorsed the administration's position that Iraq had WMDs before the war with the country, but kept it private for fear of "inciting the Arab street".<ref>"Bush: Mubarak wanted me to invade Iraq" Template:Webarchive, Mohammad Sagha. Foreign Policy. 12 November 2010. Retrieved 8 June 2011</ref>

Bush's policies changed dramatically immediately after the 11 September 2001 attacks.

During Bush's State of the Union speech of January 2002, he named Iraq, Iran and North Korea as states that "constitute an axis of evil" and "pose a grave and growing danger". Bush suggested the possibility of preemptive war: "I will not wait on events, while dangers gather. I will not stand by, as peril draws closer and closer. The United States of America will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons".<ref>"The President's State of the Union Speech Template:Webarchive". White House press release, 29 January 2002.</ref><ref>"Bush Speechwriter's Revealing Memoir Is Nerd's Revenge". The New York Observer, 19 January 2003</ref>

Some major defense and national-security persons have been quite critical of what they believed was a neoconservative influence in getting the United States to go to war against Iraq.<ref>Douglas Porch, "Writing History in the 'End of History' Era – Reflections on Historians and the GWOT", Journal of Military History, October 2006, Vol. 70 Issue 4, pp. 1065–79.</ref>

Former Nebraska Republican U.S. senator and Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel, who has been critical of the Bush administration's adoption of neoconservative ideology, in his book America: Our Next Chapter wrote:

So why did we invade Iraq? I believe it was the triumph of the so-called neo-conservative ideology, as well as Bush administration arrogance and incompetence that took America into this war of choice. ... They obviously made a convincing case to a president with very limited national security and foreign policy experience, who keenly felt the burden of leading the nation in the wake of the deadliest terrorist attack ever on American soil.{{#if:|{{#if:|}}

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President Bush, VP Dick Cheney, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice meet with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his staff at the Pentagon, 14 August 2006.

The Bush Doctrine of preemptive war was stated explicitly in the National Security Council (NSC) text "National Security Strategy of the United States". published 20 September 2002: "We must deter and defend against the threat before it is unleashed ... even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy's attack. ... The United States will, if necessary, act preemptively".<ref name="NSC">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

The choice not to use the word "preventive" in the 2002 National Security Strategy and instead use the word "preemptive" was largely in anticipation of the widely perceived illegality of preventive attacks in international law via both Charter Law and Customary Law.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In this context, disputes over the non-aggression principle in domestic and foreign policy, especially given the doctrine of preemption, alternatively impede and facilitate studies of the impact of libertarian precepts on neo-conservatism.

Policy analysts noted that the Bush Doctrine as stated in the 2002 NSC document had a strong resemblance to recommendations presented originally in a controversial Defense Planning Guidance draft written during 1992 by Paul Wolfowitz, during the first Bush administration.<ref>"The evolution of the Bush doctrine Template:Webarchive", in "The war behind closed doors". Frontline, PBS. 20 February 2003.</ref>

The Bush Doctrine was greeted with accolades by many neoconservatives. When asked whether he agreed with the Bush Doctrine, Max Boot said he did and that "I think [Bush is] exactly right to say we can't sit back and wait for the next terrorist strike on Manhattan. We have to go out and stop the terrorists overseas. We have to play the role of the global policeman. ... But I also argue that we ought to go further".<ref>"The Bush Doctrine" Template:Webarchive. Think Tank, PBS. 11 July 2002.</ref> Discussing the significance of the Bush Doctrine, neoconservative writer Bill Kristol claimed: "The world is a mess. And, I think, it's very much to Bush's credit that he's gotten serious about dealing with it. ... The danger is not that we're going to do too much. The danger is that we're going to do too little".<ref>"Assessing the Bush Doctrine Template:Webarchive", in "The war behind closed doors". Frontline, PBS. 20 February 2003.</ref>

2008 presidential election and aftermath

File:BushJohnOval.jpg

President George W. Bush and Senator John McCain at the White House, 5 March 2008, after McCain became the Republican presumptive presidential nominee

John McCain, who was the Republican candidate for the 2008 United States presidential election, endorsed continuing the second Iraq War, "the issue that is most clearly identified with the neoconservatives". The New York Times reported further that his foreign policy views combined elements of neoconservatism and the main competing conservative opinion, pragmatism, also known as realism:<ref name="nyt">Template:Cite news</ref>

Among [McCain's advisers] are several prominent neoconservatives, including Robert Kagan ... [and] Max Boot...

'It may be too strong a term to say a fight is going on over John McCain's soul,' said Lawrence Eagleburger ... who is a member of the pragmatist camp, ... [but he] said, "there is no question that a lot of my far right friends have now decided that since you can't beat him, let's persuade him to slide over as best we can on these critical issues.{{#if:|{{#if:|}}

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Barack Obama campaigned for the Democratic nomination during 2008 by attacking his opponents, especially Hillary Clinton, for originally endorsing Bush's Iraq-war policies. Obama maintained a selection of prominent military officials from the Bush administration including Robert Gates (Bush's Defense Secretary) and David Petraeus (Bush's ranking general in Iraq). Neoconservative politician Victoria Nuland, former U.S. Ambassador to NATO under Bush, was made United States Under Secretary of State by Obama.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

2010s and early 2020s

By 2010, U.S. forces had switched from combat to a training role in Iraq and they left in 2011.<ref>Stephen McGlinchey, "Neoconservatism and American Foreign Policy", Politikon: The IAPSS Journal of Political Science, Vol. 16, 1 (October 2010).</ref> The neocons had little influence in the Obama White House,<ref name="abstract">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="Robert Singh 2014 pp 29-40">Robert Singh, "Neoconservatism in the age of Obama", in Inderjeet Parmar and Linda B. Miller, eds., Obama and the World: New Directions in US Foreign Policy (Routledge 2014), pp. 29–40</ref> and neo-conservatives have lost much influence in the Republican party since the rise of the Tea Party Movement.

Several neoconservatives played a major role in the Stop Trump movement in 2016, in opposition to the Republican presidential candidacy of Donald Trump, due to his criticism of interventionist foreign policies, as well as their perception of him as an "authoritarian" figure.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> After Trump took office, some neoconservatives joined his administration, such as John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, Elliott Abrams<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> and Nadia Schadlow. Neoconservatives have supported the Trump administration's hawkish approach towards Iran<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> and Venezuela,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> while opposing the administration's withdrawal of troops from Syria<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> and diplomatic outreach to North Korea.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Although neoconservatives have served in the Trump administration, they have been observed to have been slowly overtaken by the nascent populist and national conservative movements, and to have struggled to adapt to a changing geopolitical atmosphere.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> The Lincoln Project, a political action committee consisting of current and former Republicans with the purpose of defeating Trump in the 2020 United States presidential election and Republican Senate candidates in the 2020 United States Senate elections, has been described as being primarily made of neoconservative activists seeking to return the Republican party to Bush-era ideology.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Although Trump was not reelected and the Republicans failed to retain a majority in the Senate, surprising success in the 2020 United States House of Representatives elections and internal conflicts led to renewed questions about the strength of neoconservatism.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

In the Biden administration, neoconservative Victoria Nuland retained the portfolio of Under Secretary of State she had held under Obama. President Joe Biden's top diplomat for Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, was also a neocon and a former Bush administration official.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> In the 2024 U.S. presidential election, neoconservatives including the Cheney family (Dick & Liz) and Adam Kinzinger supported Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign. After losing the election, Harris' campaign team was criticized by those within the Democratic camp for allying with neoconservatives.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

War on cartels

From the 2020s onward, several U.S. neoconservatives, such as Marco Rubio, Mike Pompeo,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> and Nikki Haley,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> among others, have supported highly punitive and militaristic measures in the context of the war on cartels. In the 2020s, the escalating opioid crisis, particularly due to fentanyl, has intensified the debate over these measures. The designation of cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) has been a key step, paving the way for counterterrorism measures. Marco Rubio, a Florida senator and nominee for Secretary of State in 2025, has shown strong support for punitive actions against cartels. During his confirmation hearing, Rubio emphasized that cartels have "operational control" over large areas of the border and advocated for designating them as terrorist organizations, a move that was officially implemented, potentially enabling military actions.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Evolution of opinions

Usage and general views

During the early 1970s, socialist Michael Harrington was one of the first to use "neoconservative" in its modern meaning. He characterized neoconservatives as former leftistsTemplate:Spaced ndashwhom he derided as "socialists for Nixon"Template:Spaced ndashwho had become more conservative.<ref name="harrington"/> These people tended to remain endorsers of social democracy, but distinguished themselves by allying with the Nixon administration with respect to foreign policy, especially by their endorsement of the Vietnam War and opposition to the Soviet Union. They still endorsed the welfare state, but not necessarily in its contemporary form. Template:External media Irving Kristol remarked that a neoconservative is a "Template:Visible anchor", one who became more conservative after seeing the results of liberal policies. Kristol also distinguished three specific aspects of neoconservatism from previous types of conservatism: neo-conservatives had a forward-looking attitude from their liberal heritage, rather than the reactionary and dour attitude of previous conservatives; they had a meliorative attitude, proposing alternate reforms rather than simply attacking social liberal reforms; and they took philosophical ideas and ideologies very seriously.<ref>Kristol, Irving. "American conservatism 1945–1995 Template:Webarchive". Public Interest, Fall 1995.</ref>

During January 2009, at the end of President George W. Bush's second term in office, Jonathan Clarke, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs and prominent critic of Neoconservatism, proposed the following as the "main characteristics of neoconservatism": "a tendency to see the world in binary good/evil terms", a "low tolerance for diplomacy", a "readiness to use military force", an "emphasis on US unilateral action", a "disdain for multilateral organizations" and a "focus on the Middle East".<ref name="news.bbc.co.uk">"Viewpoint: The end of the neocons?" Template:Webarchive, Jonathan Clarke, British Broadcasting Corporation, 13 January 2009.</ref>

Opinions concerning foreign policy

In foreign policy, the neoconservatives' main concern is to prevent the development of a new rival. Defense Planning Guidance, a document prepared during 1992 by Under Secretary for Defense for Policy Paul Wolfowitz, is regarded by Distinguished Professor of the Humanities John McGowan at the University of North Carolina as the "quintessential statement of neoconservative thought". The report says:<ref name="McGowan"/>

Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union. This is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power.

According to Lead Editor of e-International Relations Stephen McGlinchey: "Neo-conservatism is something of a chimera in modern politics. For its opponents it is a distinct political ideology that emphasizes the blending of military power with Wilsonian idealism, yet for its supporters it is more of a 'persuasion' that individuals of many types drift into and out of. Regardless of which is more correct, it is now widely accepted that the neo-conservative impulse has been visible in modern American foreign policy and that it has left a distinct impact".<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Neoconservatism first developed during the late 1960s as an effort to oppose the radical cultural changes occurring within the United States. Irving Kristol wrote: "If there is any one thing that neoconservatives are unanimous about, it is their dislike of the counterculture".<ref>Kristol, What Is a Neoconservative? p. 87.</ref> Norman Podhoretz agreed: "Revulsion against the counterculture accounted for more converts to neoconservatism than any other single factor".<ref>Podhoretz, p. 275.</ref> Neoconservatives began to emphasize foreign issues during the mid-1970s.<ref>Vaisse, Neoconservatism (2010), p. 110.</ref>

File:Defense.gov News Photo 051024-F-5586B-016.jpg

Donald Rumsfeld and Victoria Nuland at the NATO–Ukraine consultations in Vilnius, Lithuania, 24 October 2005

In 1979, an early study by liberal Peter Steinfels concentrated on the ideas of Irving Kristol, Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Daniel Bell. He noted that the stress on foreign affairs "emerged after the New Left and the counterculture had dissolved as convincing foils for neoconservatism ... The essential source of their anxiety is not military or geopolitical or to be found overseas at all; it is domestic and cultural and ideological".<ref>Steinfels, p. 69.</ref>

Neoconservative foreign policy is a descendant of so-called Wilsonian idealism. Neoconservatives endorse democracy promotion by the U.S. and other democracies, based on the conviction that natural rights are both universal and transcendent in nature. They criticized the United Nations and détente with the Soviet Union. On domestic policy, they endorse reductions in the welfare state, like European and Canadian conservatives. According to Norman Podhoretz, "'the neo-conservatives dissociated themselves from the wholesale opposition to the welfare state which had marked American conservatism since the days of the New Deal' and ... while neoconservatives supported 'setting certain limits' to the welfare state, those limits did not involve 'issues of principle, such as the legitimate size and role of the central government in the American constitutional order' but were to be 'determined by practical considerations'".<ref>Francis, Samuel (7 June 2004) Idol With Clay Feet Template:Webarchive, The American Conservative.</ref>

In April 2006, Robert Kagan wrote in The Washington Post that Russia and China may be the greatest "challenge liberalism faces today":

The main protagonists on the side of autocracy will not be the petty dictatorships of the Middle East theoretically targeted by the Bush doctrine. They will be the two great autocratic powers, China and Russia, which pose an old challenge not envisioned within the new 'war on terror' paradigm. ... Their reactions to the 'color revolutions' in Ukraine, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan were hostile and suspicious, and understandably so. ... Might not the successful liberalization of Ukraine, urged and supported by the Western democracies, be but the prelude to the incorporation of that nation into NATO and the European Union – in short, the expansion of Western liberal hegemony?<ref>"League of Dictators? Template:Webarchive". The Washington Post. 30 April 2006.</ref><ref>"US: Hawks Looking for New and Bigger Enemies? Template:Webarchive". IPS. 5 May 2006.</ref>{{#if:|{{#if:|}}

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Trying to describe the evolution within the neoconservative school of thought is bedeviled by the fact that a coherent version of Neoconservatism is difficult to distill from the various diverging voices who are nevertheless considered to be neoconservative. On the one hand were individuals such as former Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick who embodied views that were hawkish yet still fundamentally in line with Realpolitik. The more institutionalized neoconservatism that exerted influence through think tanks, the media and government officials, rejected Realpolitik and thus the Kirkpatrick Doctrine. This rejection became an impetus to push for active US support for democratic transitions in various autocratic nations.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

In the 1990s leading thinkers of this modern strand of the neoconservative school of thought, Robert Kagan and Bill Kristol, published an essay in which they lay out the basic tenets of what they call a Neo-Reaganite foreign policy. In it they reject a "return to normalcy" after the end of the Cold War and argue that the United States should instead double down on defending and extending the liberal International order. They trace the origin of their approach to foreign policy back to the foundation of the United States as a revolutionary, liberal capitalist republic. As opposed to advocates of Realpolitik, they argue that domestic politics and foreign policies are inextricably linked making it natural for any nation to be influenced by ideology, ideals and concepts of morality in their respective international conduct. Hence, this archetypical neoconservative position attempts to overcome the dichotomy of pragmatism and idealism emphasizing instead that a values-driven foreign policy is not just consistent with American historical tradition but that it is in the enlightened self-interest of the United States.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Views on economics

While neoconservatism is concerned primarily with foreign policy, there is also some discussion of internal economic policies. Neoconservatism generally endorses free markets and capitalism, favoring supply-side economics, but it has several disagreements with classical liberalism and fiscal conservatism. Irving Kristol states that neocons are more relaxed about budget deficits and tend to reject the Hayekian notion that the growth of government influence on society and public welfare is "the road to serfdom".<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Indeed, to safeguard democracy, government intervention and budget deficits may sometimes be necessary, Kristol argues. After the so-called "reconciliation with capitalism", self-identified "neoconservatives" frequently favored a reduced welfare state, but not its elimination.

Neoconservative ideology stresses that while free markets do provide material goods in an efficient way, they lack the moral guidance human beings need to fulfill their needs. They say that morality can be found only in tradition and that markets do pose questions that cannot be solved solely by economics, arguing: "So, as the economy only makes up part of our lives, it must not be allowed to take over and entirely dictate to our society".<ref>Murray, p. 40.</ref> Critics consider neoconservatism a bellicose and "heroic" ideology opposed to "mercantile" and "bourgeois" virtues and therefore "a variant of anti-economic thought".<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Political scientist Zeev Sternhell states: "Neoconservatism has succeeded in convincing the great majority of Americans that the main questions that concern a society are not economic, and that social questions are really moral questions".<ref>Template:Cite book p. 436.</ref>

Friction with other conservatives

Many conservatives oppose neoconservative policies and have critical views on it. Disputes over the non-aggression principle in domestic and foreign policy, especially given the doctrine of preemption, can impede (and facilitate) studies of the impact of libertarian precepts on neo-conservatism, but that of course didn't, and still doesn't, stop pundits from publishing appraisals. For example, Stefan Halper and Jonathan Clarke (a libertarian based at Cato), in their 2004 book on neoconservatism, America Alone: The Neo-Conservatives and the Global Order,<ref name="America Alone">say that neocons "propose an untenable model for our nation's future" (p. 8) and then outline what they think is the inner logic of the movement:Template:Cite book</ref> characterized the neoconservatives at that time as uniting around three common themes:

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Responding to a question about neoconservatives in 2004, William F. Buckley Jr. said: "I think those I know, which is most of them, are bright, informed and idealistic, but that they simply overrate the reach of U.S. power and influence".<ref name=nytmds>Sanger, Deborah, "Questions for William F. Buckley: Conservatively Speaking" Template:Webarchive, interview in The New York Times Magazine, 11 July 2004. Retrieved 6 March 2008</ref>

Friction with paleoconservatism

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Starting during the 1980s, disputes concerning Israel and public policy contributed to a conflict with paleoconservatives. Pat Buchanan terms neoconservatism "a globalist, interventionist, open borders ideology".<ref>Tolson 2003.</ref> Paul Gottfried has written that the neocons' call for "permanent revolution" exists independently of their beliefs about Israel,<ref name="gottfried48">"Fatuous and Malicious Template:Webarchive" by Paul Gottfried. LewRockwell.com, 28 March 2003.</ref> characterizing the neoconservatives as "ranters out of a Dostoyevskian novel, who are out to practice permanent revolution courtesy of the U.S. government" and questioning how anyone could mistake them for conservatives.<ref name="Goldberg Is Not the Worst">"Goldberg Is Not the Worst" Template:Webarchive by Paul Gottfried. LewRockwell.com, 20 March 2003.</ref>

What make neocons most dangerous are not their isolated ghetto hang-ups, like hating Germans and Southern whites and calling everyone and his cousin an anti-Semite, but the leftist revolutionary fury they express.<ref name="Goldberg Is Not the Worst"/>

He has also argued that domestic equality and the exportability of democracy are points of contention between them.<ref>Paul Gottfried's Paleoconservatism article in "American Conservatism: An Encyclopedia" (ISI:2006)</ref>

Paul Craig Roberts, United States Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy during the Reagan administration and associated with paleoconservatism stated in 2003 that "there is nothing conservative about neoconservatives. Neocons hide behind 'conservative' but they are in fact Jacobins. Jacobins were the 18th century French revolutionaries whose intention to remake Europe in revolutionary France's image launched the Napoleonic Wars".<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Trotskyism allegation

Critics have argued that since the founders of neo-conservatism included ex-Trotskyists, Trotskyist traits continue to characterize neo-conservative ideologies and practices.<ref name="FA">Template:Cite news</ref> During the Reagan administration, the charge was made that the foreign policy of the Reagan administration was being managed by ex-Trotskyists. This claim was cited by Template:Harvtxt, who was a neoconservative and former Trotskyist himself.<ref name="Lip34">"A 1987 article in The New Republic described these developments as a Trotskyist takeover of the Reagan administration", wrote Template:Harvtxt.</ref> This "Trotskyist" charge was repeated and widened by journalist Michael Lind during 2003 to assert a takeover of the foreign policy of the George W. Bush administration by former Trotskyists;<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Lind's "amalgamation of the defense intellectuals with the traditions and theories of 'the largely Jewish-American Trotskyist movement' [in Lind's words]" was criticized during 2003 by University of Michigan professor Alan M. Wald,<ref name="harv27June2003">Template:Cite journal</ref> who had discussed Trotskyism in his history of "The New York Intellectuals".<ref name="Wald">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="tandfonline">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal The question of 'Shachtmanism'</ref>

The charge that neoconservativism is related to Leninism has also been made by Francis Fukuyama. He argued that both believe in the "existence of a long-term process of social evolution", though neoconservatives seek to establish liberal democracy instead of communism.<ref name="Fukuyama">Fukuyama, F. (19 February 2006). After Neoconservatism Template:Webarchive. The New York Times Magazine. Retrieved 1 December 2008.</ref> He wrote that neoconservatives "believed that history can be pushed along with the right application of power and will. Leninism was a tragedy in its Bolshevik version, and it has returned as farce when practiced by the United States. Neoconservatism, as both a political symbol and a body of thought, has evolved into something I can no longer support".<ref name="Fukuyama"/> However, these comparisons ignore anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist positions central to Leninism, which run contradictory to core neoconservative beliefs.<ref>"Imperialism", The Penguin Dictionary of International Relations (1998), by Graham Evans and Jeffrey Newnham. p. 244.</ref>

Criticism

Critics of neoconservatism take issue with neoconservatives' support for interventionistic foreign policy. Critics from the left take issue with what they characterize as unilateralism and lack of concern with international consensus through organizations such as the United Nations.<ref>Template:Cite news Kinsley quotes Rich Lowry, whom he describes as "a conservative of the non-neo variety", as criticizing the neoconservatives "messianic vision" and "excessive optimism"; Kinsley contrasts the present-day neoconservative foreign policy to earlier neoconservative Jeane Kirkpatrick's "tough-minded pragmatism".</ref><ref>Martin Jacques, "The neocon revolution Template:Webarchive", The Guardian, 31 March 2005. Retrieved 25 December 2006. (Cited for "unilateralism".)</ref><ref>Rodrigue Tremblay, "The Neo-Conservative Agenda: Humanism vs. Imperialism Template:Webarchive", presented at the Conference at the American Humanist Association annual meeting Las Vegas, 9 May 2004. Retrieved 25 December 2006 on the site of the Mouvement laïque québécois.</ref>

Critics from both the left and right have assailed neoconservatives for the role Israel plays in their policies on the Middle East.<ref>[1] Template:Webarchive Dual Loyalty?, By Rebecca Phillips, ABC News, 15 March 2003</ref><ref>[2] Template:Webarchive Joe Klein on Neoconservatives and Iran, Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic, 29 July 2008</ref>

Neoconservatives respond by describing their shared opinion as a belief that national security is best attained by actively promoting freedom and democracy abroad as in the democratic peace theory through the endorsement of democracy, foreign aid and in certain cases military intervention. This is different from the traditional conservative tendency to endorse friendly regimes in matters of trade and anti-communism even at the expense of undermining existing democratic systems.

In a column on The New York Times named "Years of Shame" commemorating the tenth anniversary of 9/11, Paul Krugman criticized them for causing a supposedly entirely unrelated war.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Adherence to conservatism

Former Republican Congressman Ron Paul (now a Libertarian politician) has been a longtime critic of neoconservativism as an attack on freedom and the Constitution, including an extensive speech on the House floor addressing neoconservative beginnings and how neoconservatism is neither new nor conservative.<ref>Archived at GhostarchiveTemplate:Cbignore and the Wayback MachineTemplate:Cbignore: {{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}Template:Cbignore</ref>

Imperialism and secrecy

John McGowan, professor of humanities at the University of North Carolina, states after an extensive review of neoconservative literature and theory that neoconservatives are attempting to build an American Empire, seen as successor to the British Empire, its goal being to perpetuate a "Pax Americana". As imperialism is largely considered unacceptable by the American media, neoconservatives do not articulate their ideas and goals in a frank manner in public discourse. McGowan states:<ref name="McGowan">Template:Cite book</ref>

Frank neoconservatives like Robert Kaplan and Niall Ferguson recognize that they are proposing imperialism as the alternative to liberal internationalism. Yet both Kaplan and Ferguson also understand that imperialism runs so counter to American's liberal tradition that it must ... remain a foreign policy that dare not speak its name ... While Ferguson, the Brit, laments that Americans cannot just openly shoulder the white man's burden, Kaplan the American, tells us that "only through stealth and anxious foresight" can the United States continue to pursue the "imperial reality [that] already dominates our foreign policy", but must be disavowed in light of "our anti-imperial traditions, and ... the fact that imperialism is delegitimized in public discourse"... The Bush administration, justifying all of its actions by an appeal to "national security", has kept as many of those actions as it can secret and has scorned all limitations to executive power by other branches of government or international law.{{#if:|{{#if:|}}

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Notable people associated with neoconservatism

The list includes public people identified as personally neoconservative at an important time or a high official with numerous neoconservative advisers, such as George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

Marco Rubio – current 72th United States secretary of state, former U.S. Senator from Florida, and 2016 Republican presidential candidate, he had been described as neoconservative during his 2016 campaign,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> but then gradually shifted to a non-interventionist “America First” foreign policy and became the 72nd United States secretary of state in Trump's second term.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> However, he has taken an interventionist and militaristic stance toward several drug cartels, toward several drug cartels, which were classified as Foreign Terrorist Organizations in February 2025 in the context of the war on cartels.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Politicians

File:Bush War Budget 2003-crop.jpg

George W. Bush announces his $74.7 billion wartime supplemental budget request as Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz look on.

• George W. Bush – 43rd U.S. President, 46th U.S. Governor of Texas<ref name="Neoconservativeconvergence">Template:Cite news</ref>
• Jeb Bush – 43rd U.S. Governor of Florida, 2016 Republican presidential candidate<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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• Dick Cheney – 46th U.S. Vice President<ref name="Neoconservativeconvergence"/>
• Donald Rumsfeld – former U.S. Secretary of Defense<ref name="Neoconservativeconvergence"/>
• Henry "Scoop" Jackson – former U.S. Senator from Washington<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
• Joe Lieberman – former U.S. Senator from Connecticut, 2000 Democratic vice-presidential nominee<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
• John McCain – former U.S. Representative and U.S. Senator from Arizona, 2000 Republican presidential candidate, 2008 Republican presidential nominee<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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• Lindsey Graham – U.S. Senator from South Carolina, 2016 Republican presidential candidate<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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• Mitch McConnell – U.S. Senator from Kentucky and Chair of the Senate Rules Committee<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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• Michael McCaul – U.S. Representative from Texas<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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• Mike Gallagher – former U.S. Representative from Wisconsin and Chair of the House Committee on the Chinese Communist Party<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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• Mike Pompeo – former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and 70th United States secretary of state<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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• Asa Hutchinson – 46th U.S. Governor of Arkansas, 2024 Republican presidential candidate<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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• Nikki Haley – 29th U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, 116th U.S. Governor of South Carolina, 2024 Republican presidential candidate<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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• Mike Turner – U.S. Representative from Ohio<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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• Tom Cotton – U.S. Senator and former Representative from Arkansas <ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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• Don Bacon – U.S. Representative from Nebraska and former U.S. Air Force General<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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Government officials

File:William Kristol (33193185016).jpg

Bill Kristol orating at Arizona State University in March 2017

• John P. Walters – former U.S. government official, current President and Chief Executive Officer of Hudson Institute<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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• Nadia Schadlow – academic and defense-related government officer<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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• Elliot Abrams – foreign policy advisor<ref name="Bernstein">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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• Richard Perle – former Assistant Secretary of Defense and lobbyist<ref name="Bernstein"/><ref name="Chechen Terrorists and the Neocons"/>
• John R. Bolton – former National Security Advisor and 25th U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations<ref name=":1">Template:Cite journal</ref>
• Kenneth Adelman – former Director of Arms Control and Disarmament Agency<ref name="Chechen Terrorists and the Neocons"/>
• William Bennett – former chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, former Director of the National Drug Control Policy and former U.S. Secretary of Education<ref name="Bernstein"/><ref>Edward B. Fiske, Reagan's Man for Education Template:Webarchive, The New York Times (22 December 1985): "Bennett's scholarly production has consisted primarily of articles in neo-conservative journals like Commentary, Policy Review and The Public Interest."</ref>
• Eliot A. Cohen – former State Department Counselor, now Robert E. Osgood Professor of Strategic Studies at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at the Johns Hopkins University<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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• Eric S. Edelman – former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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• Evelyn Farkas – Executive Director of the McCain Institute, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
• Douglas J. Feith – former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy<ref name="How Neoconservatives Conquered Washington – and Launched a War"/>
• Jeane Kirkpatrick – former Ambassador to the United Nations under Ronald Reagan, influenced by traditional realist thinking<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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• David J. Kramer – Executive Director of the George W. Bush Institute, former Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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• Bill Kristol – former Chief of Staff to the Vice President of the United States, co-founder and former editor of The Weekly Standard, professor of political philosophy and American politics and political adviser<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="Drezner">Daniel W. Drezner, Who belongs in the anti-Trump coalition? Template:Webarchive, Washington Post (12 December 2017): "[Kristol] is hardly the only neoconservative to fall into this category; see, for example, Peter Wehner or Jennifer Rubin."</ref>

• Scooter Libby – former Chief of Staff to the Vice President of the United States<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="How Neoconservatives Conquered Washington – and Launched a War"/>

• Victoria Nuland – former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

• Condoleezza Rice – former National Security Advisor and 66th United States Secretary of State<ref name="Neoconservativeconvergence" />
• Randy Scheunemann – foreign policy advisor and lobbyist<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

• Kurt Volker – former U.S. Permanent Representative to NATO<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

• Paul Wolfowitz – former State and Defense Department official<ref name="Bernstein"/><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="How Neoconservatives Conquered Washington – and Launched a War"/>

• R. James Woolsey Jr. – former Undersecretary of the Navy, former Director of Central Intelligence, green energy lobbyist<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="How Neoconservatives Conquered Washington – and Launched a War"/><ref name="Return of the Neocons: Trump's Surprising Cabinet Candidates"/><ref name="Chechen Terrorists and the Neocons"/><ref name="As Green as a Neocon">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Public figures

File:Robert Kagan Fot Mariusz Kubik 02.jpg

Robert Kagan

File:David Frum, Senior Editor, The Atlantic, and author, Why Romney Lost speaking at Policy Exchange (14174385791).jpg

David Frum speaking to Policy Exchange in 2013

• Fred Barnes – co-founder and former executive editor of The Weekly Standard<ref>Paul Starr, The 'Weekly Standard' and the Eclipse of the Center-Right Template:Webarchive, The American Prospect (5 December 2018): "Founded in 1995 by the neoconservatives Bill Kristol and Fred Barnes..."</ref>
• Max Boot – author, consultant, editorialist, lecturer, and military historian;<ref name="nyt"/> formerly, publicly distanced himself and renounced Neoconservatism <ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
• David Brooks – columnist <ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
• Midge Decter – journalist, author † <ref name="Chechen Terrorists and the Neocons"/>

File:Stephen Suleyman Schwartz, San Francisco, 2013.jpg

Lulu Schwartz

• Lulu Schwartz - American journalist, author and columnist who held a senior policy analyst role at Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a neo-conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• Niall Ferguson<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
• Steve Forbes<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

• David Frum – journalist, Republican speechwriter and columnist<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

• Reuel Marc Gerecht – writer, political analyst and senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
• Jonah Goldberg – founding editor of The Dispatch
• David Horowitz<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
• Bruce P. Jackson – activist, former U.S. military intelligence officer<ref name="Chechen Terrorists and the Neocons"/>
• Donald Kagan – Sterling Professor of Classics and History at Yale University †.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

• Frederick Kagan – historian, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute<ref>Jeanne Morefield, Empires Without Imperialism: Anglo-American Decline and the Politics of Deflection Template:Webarchive, Oxford University Press, 2014, p. 73</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• Robert Kagan – senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, scholar of U.S. foreign policy, founder of the Yale Political Monthly, adviser to Republican political campaigns and one of 25 members of an advisory board to Hillary Clinton at the State Department (Kagan calls himself a "liberal interventionist" rather than "neoconservative")<ref name=nytimes-kagan>Template:Citation</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
• Charles Krauthammer – Pulitzer Prize winner, columnist and psychiatrist † <ref>Charles Krauthammer, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and intellectual provocateur, dies at 68 Template:Webarchive, Washington Post (21 June 2018): "championed the muscular foreign policy of neoconservatism..."</ref>
• Irving Kristol – publisher, journalist and columnist † <ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

• Eli Lake – journalist and columnist<ref name="ntrump">Template:Cite news</ref>
• Michael Ledeen – historian, foreign policy analyst, scholar at the American Enterprise Institute<ref name="Chechen Terrorists and the Neocons"/>
• Clifford May – founder and president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
• Joshua Muravchik - political scholar<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
• Douglas Murray<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
• Michael Pillsbury<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

• Daniel Pipes<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
• Richard Pipes<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>
• Danielle Pletka – American Enterprise Institute vice president<ref>Jacob Heilbrunn, They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons (Anchor Books, 2009), pp. 224-25: "Danielle Pletka ... a leading neocon"</ref>
• John Podhoretz – editor of Commentary<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

• Norman Podhoretz – editor-in-chief of Commentary<ref>Nathan Abrams, Norman Podhoretz and Commentary Magazine: The Rise and Fall of the Neocons (Bloomsbury, 2011).</ref><ref>Norman Podhoretz Still Picks Fights and Drops Names Template:Webarchive, New York Times (17 March 2017): "became a shaper of the neoconservative movement".</ref>
• Yuval Levin – founding editor of National Affairs (2009–present) and director of Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies at the American Enterprise Institute.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

• Michael Rubin – resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute<ref>Michael Rubin, Why Neoconservatism Was and Is Right Template:Webarchive (Washington: American Enterprise Institute, 2010).</ref>
• Gary Schmitt – resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute<ref>John Davis, Presidential Policies and the Road to the Second Iraq War: From Forty One to Forty Three (Ashgate, 2006), p. 1: "neoconservative Gary Schmitt"</ref><ref>Sidelined by reality Template:Webarchive, The Economist (19 April 2007): " Gary Schmitt, a fellow neocon, complained of Mr Feith..."</ref>

File:Ben Shapiro (27944654676).jpg

Ben Shapiro speaking at the 2016 Politicon at the Pasadena Convention Center in Pasadena, California

• Ben Shapiro – political commentator, public speaker, author, lawyer, founder and editor emeritus of The Daily Wire.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• Bret Stephens – journalist and columnist for The New York Times<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
• Irwin Stelzer – economist and writer<ref>C. Bradley Thompson with Yaron Brook, Neoconservatism, An Obituary for an Idea (Taylor & Francis, 2010: Routledge 2016 ed.): "neoconservative economist Irwin Stelzer"</ref>
• Ruth Wisse<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Related publications and institutions

Institutions

• American Enterprise Institute<ref>Template:Cite bookTemplate:Dead link</ref>
• Committee for the Free World<ref name="ehrman">John Ehrman, The Rise of Neoconservatism: Intellectuals and Foreign Affairs, 1945-1994, Yale University Press, 1996, pp. 139-141 [3]</ref>
• Foundation for Defense of Democracies<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=csmonitor>Template:Cite news</ref>
• Henry Jackson Society<ref>K. Dodds, K. and S. Elden, "Thinking Ahead: David Cameron, the Henry Jackson Society and BritishNeoConservatism", British Journal of Politics and International Relations (2008), 10(3): 347–63.</ref>
• Hudson Institute<ref name="Danny Cooper 2011 45">Template:Cite book</ref>
• Jewish Institute for National Security of America<ref name="auto1">Template:Cite book</ref>
• Project for the New American Century<ref>Template:Cite bookTemplate:Dead link</ref>
• The Washington Institute for Near East Policy<ref name="auto1"/>
• United Against Nuclear Iran<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Publications

• Commentary
• National Review (neoconservative opinion pieces)
• The Washington Free Beacon
• The Bulwark

Defunct publications

• The Public Interest (1965–2005)
• The Weekly Standard (1995–2018)

See also

• British neoconservatism
• Criticism of Islamism
• Democratic peace theory
• Factions in the Republican Party (United States)
• Globalization
• Intellectual dark web
• Interventionism (politics)
• Jewish conservatism<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

• Liberal conservatism<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• Liberal hawk
• Liberal internationalism
• Neoconservatism and paleoconservatism
• Neoconservatism in Japan
• Neoconservatism in the Czech Republic
• Neoliberalism
• Neo-libertarianism
• New Right in the United States
• Paleoconservatism
• Team B
• Tory socialism
• Trotskyism
• United States militarism
• Views on military action against Iran

References

• Albanese, Matteo. The Concept of War in Neoconservative Thinking, IPOC, Milan, 2012. Translated by Nicolas Lewkowicz. Template:ISBN
• Template:Cite book
• Buchanan, Patrick J. "Whose War", The American Conservative, 24 March 2003. Retrieved 16 September 2006.
• Bush, George W., Gerhard Schroeder, et al., "Transcript: Bush, Schroeder Roundtable With German Professionals", The Washington Post, 23 February 2005. Retrieved 16 September 2006.
• Critchlow, Donald T. The conservative ascendancy: how the GOP right made political history (2nd ed., 2011)
• Dean, John. Worse Than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush, Little, Brown, 2004. Template:ISBN (hardback). Critical account of neo-conservatism in the administration of George W. Bush.
• Frum, David. "Unpatriotic Conservatives", National Review, 7 April 2003. Retrieved 16 September 2006.
• Gerson, Mark, ed. The Essential Neo-Conservative Reader, Perseus, 1997. Template:ISBN (paperback), Template:ISBN (hardback).
• Gerson, Mark. "Norman's Conquest: A Commentary on the Podhoretz Legacy", Policy Review, Fall 1995, Number 74. Retrieved 16 September 2006.
• Gray, John. Black Mass, Allen Lane, 2007. Template:ISBN.
• Hanson, Jim The Decline of the American Empire, Praeger, 1993. Template:ISBN.
• Halper, Stefan and Jonathan Clarke. America Alone: The Neo-Conservatives and the Global Order, Cambridge University Press, 2004. Template:ISBN.
• Kagan, Robert, et al., Present Dangers: Crisis and Opportunity in American Foreign and Defense Policy. Encounter Books, 2000. Template:ISBN.
• Kristol, Irving. Neo-Conservatism: The Autobiography of an Idea: Selected Essays 1949-1995, New York: The Free Press, 1995. Template:ISBN (10). Template:ISBN (13). (Hardcover ed.) Reprinted as Neoconservatism: The Autobiography of an Idea, New York: Ivan R. Dee, 1999. Template:ISBN (10). (Paperback ed.)
• Kristol, Irving. "What Is a Neoconservative?", Newsweek, 19 January 1976.
• Lara Amat y León, Joan y Antón Mellón, Joan, "Las persuasiones neoconservadoras: F. Fukuyama, S. P. Huntington, W. Kristol y R. Kagan", en Máiz, Ramón (comp.), Teorías políticas contemporáneas, (2ªed.rev. y ampl.) Tirant lo Blanch, Valencia, 2009. Template:ISBN. Ficha del libro
• Lara Amat y León, Joan, "Cosmopolitismo y anticosmoplitismo en el neoconservadurismo: Fukuyama y Huntington", en Nuñez, Paloma y Espinosa, Javier (eds.), Filosofía y política en el siglo XXI. Europa y el nuevo orden cosmopolita, Akal, Madrid, 2009. Template:ISBN. Ficha del libro
• Lasn, Kalle. "Why won't anyone say they are Jewish?", Adbusters, March/April 2004. Retrieved 16 September 2006.
• Lewkowicz, Nicolas. "Neoconservatism and the Propagation of Democracy Template:Webarchive", Democracy Chronicles, 11 February 2013.
• Template:Cite journal
• Mann, James. Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush's War Cabinet, Viking, 2004. Template:ISBN (cloth).
• Template:Cite magazine
• Mascolo, Georg. "A Leaderless, Directionless Superpower: interview with Ex-Powell aide Wilkerson"Template:Dead link, Spiegel Online, 6 December 2005. Retrieved 16 September 2006.
• Muravchik, Joshua. "Renegades", Commentary, 1 October 2002. Bibliographical information is available online, the article itself is not.
• Muravchik, Joshua. "The Neoconservative Cabal", Commentary, September 2003. Bibliographical information is available online, the article itself is not.
• Prueher, Joseph. U.S. apology to China over spy plane incident, 11 April 2001. Reproduced on sinomania.com. Retrieved 16 September 2006.
• Podoretz, Norman. The Norman Podhoretz Reader. New York: Free Press, 2004. Template:ISBN.
• Roucaute Yves. Le Neoconservatisme est un humanisme. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2005.Template:ISBN.
• Roucaute Yves. La Puissance de la Liberté. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2004.Template:ISBN.
• Ruppert, Michael C.. Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil, New Society, 2004. Template:ISBN.
• Ryn, Claes G., America the Virtuous: The Crisis of Democracy and the Quest for Empire, Transaction, 2003. Template:ISBN (cloth).
• Stelzer, Irwin, ed. Neoconservatism, Atlantic Books, 2004.
• Smith, Grant F. Deadly Dogma: How Neoconservatives Broke the Law to Deceive America. Template:ISBN.
• Solarz, Stephen, et al. "Open Letter to the President", 19 February 1998, online at IraqWatch.org. Retrieved 16 September 2006.
• Template:Cite book
• Strauss, Leo. Natural Right and History, University of Chicago Press, 1999. Template:ISBN.
• Strauss, Leo. The Rebirth of Classical Political Rationalism, University of Chicago Press, 1989. Template:ISBN.
• Tolson, Jay. "The New American Empire?", U.S. News & World Report, 13 January 2003. Retrieved 16 September 2006.
• Wilson, Joseph. The Politics of Truth. Carroll & Graf, 2004. Template:ISBN.
• Woodward, Bob. Plan of Attack, Simon and Schuster, 2004. Template:ISBN.

Further reading

• Arin, Kubilay Yado: Think Tanks: The Brain Trusts of US Foreign Policy. Wiesbaden: VS Springer 2013.
• Balint, Benjamin V. Running Commentary: The Contentious Magazine that Transformed the Jewish Left into the Neoconservative Right (2010).
• Dorrien, Gary. The Neoconservative Mind. Template:ISBN, n attack from the Left.
• Ehrman, John. The Rise of Neoconservatism: Intellectual and Foreign Affairs 1945 – 1994, Yale University Press, 2005, Template:ISBN.
• Eisendrath, Craig R. and Melvin A. Goodman. Bush League Diplomacy: How the Neoconservatives are Putting The World at Risk (Prometheus Books, 2004), Template:ISBN.
• Franczak, Michael. 2019. "Losing the Battle, Winning the War: Neoconservatives versus the New International Economic Order, 1974–82."Diplomatic History
• Friedman, Murray. The Neoconservative Revolution: Jewish Intellectuals and the Shaping of Public Policy. Cambridge University Press, 2006. Template:ISBN.
• Grandin, Greg."Empire's Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism." Metropolitan Books Henry Holt & Company, 2006.Template:ISBN.
• Heilbrunn, Jacob. They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons, Doubleday (2008) Template:ISBN.
  • Heilbrunn, Jacob. "5 Myths About Those Nefarious Neocons", The Washington Post, 10 February 2008.
• Kristol, Irving. "The Neoconservative Persuasion".
• Lind, Michael. "How Neoconservatives Conquered Washington", Salon, 9 April 2003.
• MacDonald, Kevin. "The Neoconservative Mind", review of They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons by Jacob Heilbrunn.
• Vaïsse, Justin. Neoconservatism: The Biography of a Movement (Harvard U.P. 2010), translated from the French.
• McClelland, Mark, The unbridling of virtue: neoconservatism between the Cold War and the Iraq War.
• Shavit, Ari, "White Man's Burden", Haaretz, 3 April 2003.
• Singh, Robert. "Neoconservatism in the age of Obama." in Inderjeet Parmar, ed., Obama and the World (Routledge, 2014). 51–62. online Template:Webarchive

Identity

• "Neocon 101: What do neoconservatives believe?", Christian Science Monitor, 2003
• Rose, David, "Neo Culpa", Vanity Fair, 2006
• Steigerwald, Bill. "So, what is a 'Neocon'?".
• Lind, Michael, "A Tragedy of Errors".

Critiques

• Fukuyama, Francis. "After Neoconservatism", The New York Times, 2006.
• Thompson, Bradley C. (with Yaron Brook). Neoconservatism. An Obituary for an Idea. Boulder/London: Paradigm Publishers, 2010. Template:ISBN.

External links

• Template:Commons category-inline
• Template:Britannica
• Adam Curtis, The Power of Nightmares, BBC. Archive.
• "Why Neoconservatism Still Matters" by Justin Vaïsse
• "Neoconservativism in a Nutshell" by Jim Lobe
• The Rise and Demise of American Unipolarism: Neoconservatism and U.S. Foreign Policy 1989–2009 by Maria Ryan
• Interview with Jim Lobe on Neoconservatism