Neoconservatism is a political movement that emerged in the United States during the 1960s and 1970s, primarily among intellectuals who had once identified with the political left but grew disillusioned with what they saw as liberalism’s drift toward moral relativism and foreign policy weakness. Unlike traditional American conservatism, which often leaned toward limited government and cautious engagement abroad, neoconservatism championed an activist foreign policy aimed at spreading democratic values, a muscular military posture, and a domestic agenda rooted in the defense of cultural and moral standards. The movement reached its peak influence during the presidency of George W. Bush, but its intellectual roots run considerably deeper, and its aftereffects continue to shape foreign policy debates.
Where the Movement Came From
The origin story of neoconservatism is unusual because most of its founding figures started on the political left. Irving Kristol, often called “the godfather of neoconservatism,” famously described a neoconservative as “a liberal who has been mugged by reality.” Kristol and others like Norman Podhoretz, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and Jeane Kirkpatrick were Democrats or democratic socialists in their youth, steeped in the anti-Stalinist left of the 1940s and 1950s. What pushed them rightward was a combination of factors: alarm at the counterculture of the 1960s, frustration with Great Society welfare programs they believed had backfired, and above all a conviction that American liberals had gone soft on the Soviet Union.
By the mid-1970s, these intellectuals had coalesced around a set of journals and think tanks. Commentary magazine, edited by Podhoretz, became a flagship publication. The Public Interest, co-founded by Kristol and Daniel Bell, tackled domestic policy from a skeptical-of-government perspective. The American Enterprise Institute provided institutional support. What held the group together was less a rigid ideology than a shared temperament: a willingness to use government power in pursuit of moral ends, combined with deep suspicion of utopianism, whether from the left or from libertarian free-market purists.
The Philosophical Roots
The intellectual genealogy of neoconservatism traces back further than the Cold War. Leo Strauss, a German-born political philosopher who taught at the University of Chicago, is frequently cited as one of the movement’s most important intellectual ancestors. Strauss argued that modern social science, particularly the tradition flowing from Max Weber, had made a grave error in trying to separate facts from values. In Strauss’s view, this commitment to value-free inquiry had corroded Western civilization’s confidence in its own foundational principles: reason, morality, and the pursuit of peace.
Strauss’s students and intellectual heirs drew from this critique a political conclusion that Strauss himself may not have fully endorsed. If the modern West was losing faith in its own moral foundations, then the task of statesmanship was to defend and reassert those foundations, by force if necessary. This line of reasoning appealed to neoconservatives who saw the relativism of the 1960s counterculture and the defeatism of post-Vietnam foreign policy as symptoms of the same disease Strauss had diagnosed.1Revista Justiça do Direito. A recepção neoconservadora estadunidense da crÃtica de Leo Strauss ao projeto moderno weberiano de uma ciência livre de valores Not every neoconservative was a Straussian, and Strauss scholars dispute how much the movement’s policy agenda faithfully reflects his philosophy. But the connection is real enough that critics routinely invoke Strauss when explaining the movement’s intellectual confidence and its conviction that liberal democracies must actively defend their values rather than assume those values will win out on their own.
What Neoconservatives Actually Believe About Foreign Policy
The area where neoconservatism is most distinctive is foreign affairs. Traditional conservatives in the mold of Robert Taft or Pat Buchanan tended toward restraint, favoring a strong national defense but opposing entanglements abroad. Realists like Henry Kissinger or Brent Scowcroft were willing to engage globally but prioritized stability and the balance of power over ideology. Neoconservatives broke from both camps. They argued that American security was inseparable from the character of other nations’ governments: dictatorships breed instability, sponsor terrorism, and threaten their neighbors, while democracies tend toward peace. The logical policy conclusion was that the United States should actively promote democracy abroad, using military force when necessary.
This conviction drew on a reading of American history that treated the country’s global role as fundamentally benign and exceptional. Where realists saw a dangerous world best navigated through prudent deal-making, neoconservatives saw a world that could be improved through the assertive exercise of American power. The fall of the Soviet Union seemed to vindicate this view. If American resolve had won the Cold War, then American resolve could also reshape the Middle East, contain rogue states, and create a more democratic and therefore more peaceful world order.
In practice, this meant neoconservatives consistently argued for higher defense budgets, skepticism of arms control agreements, support for Israel as a democratic ally in a hostile region, and a willingness to act unilaterally when international institutions proved unwilling to confront threats. During the 1990s, prominent neoconservatives organized the Project for the New American Century, which openly advocated for regime change in Iraq years before the September 11 attacks made that goal politically feasible.
The Complicated Relationship with Capitalism
Neoconservatives are often lumped together with free-market conservatives and libertarians, but the relationship between neoconservatism and capitalism has always been more fraught than that. Irving Kristol’s famous book was titled “Two Cheers for Capitalism,” not three. Neoconservatives accepted capitalism as the best available economic system, but they worried openly about the culture it produced. In their view, market societies tend to generate materialism, hedonism, and a preoccupation with immediate gratification that erodes the moral seriousness a great nation needs.
This cultural critique had two dimensions. First, neoconservatives argued that capitalism undermines the Protestant ethic of discipline, thrift, and deferred gratification that historically legitimized capitalist accumulation and inequality. Without that moral framework, the wealth capitalism produces looks arbitrary and unjustifiable, feeding resentment and radical politics. Second, they worried that consumer culture weakens the heroic virtues of patriotic self-sacrifice that made the United States a global superpower. A society devoted to shopping and entertainment would lack the will to defend itself.2New Political Science. The Neoconservative Critiques of and Reconciliation with Capitalism
Their proposed solutions reflected both concerns. On the domestic front, neoconservatives embraced supply-side economics not purely on efficiency grounds but because they believed cutting taxes and stimulating growth would revitalize entrepreneurial culture and reduce dependence on the welfare state. On the foreign policy front, the project of maintaining an American empire served a dual purpose: it protected national security while also providing a cause larger than consumerism around which citizens could rally. The neoconservative vision was thus never purely economic. It treated cultural renewal and national greatness as inseparable from economic policy.3New Political Science. The Neoconservative Critiques of and Reconciliation with Capitalism
September 11 and the Iraq War
The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, transformed neoconservatism from an intellectual tendency into the dominant framework of American foreign policy. Key neoconservative figures held senior positions in the George W. Bush administration: Paul Wolfowitz as Deputy Secretary of Defense, Douglas Feith as Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, and I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby as the Vice President’s chief of staff. Their influence was amplified by allies like Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who were not neoconservatives by origin but shared their hawkish instincts.
The invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001 enjoyed broad bipartisan support. The push for war in Iraq, which began almost immediately after 9/11, was more distinctly neoconservative. The argument rested on three pillars: that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, that his regime had ties to terrorist networks, and that removing him would catalyze democratic transformation across the Middle East. The first two claims turned out to be wrong or greatly exaggerated. The third reflected the neoconservative conviction that democracy could be established through force and would spread organically once planted.
The Bush administration’s broader counterterrorism strategy bore strong neoconservative imprints. It aimed to preserve American global primacy through overwhelming military power and embedded the idea that preventing another catastrophic attack required sustained and aggressive military action against terrorist organizations worldwide. This framing helped create what scholars have called “forever war,” a counterterrorism posture so deeply normalized that it persisted long after the neoconservatives themselves lost influence.4International Politics. Beyond the neoconservative legacy in American counterterrorism policy: from George W. Bush to forever war The interplay between neoconservative ideology and the conservative nationalism of figures like Cheney produced a policy framework that neither faction alone would have generated, making it durable enough to outlast both.
How Neoconservatism Differs from Other Right-Wing Traditions
One of the most common confusions about neoconservatism is treating it as synonymous with conservatism in general. In reality, neoconservatives have clashed repeatedly with other factions on the American right, and the differences are not trivial.
- Libertarians: Neoconservatives accept a significant role for the state in both domestic and foreign affairs. They supported welfare reform rather than welfare abolition, favored regulation of cultural content they found objectionable, and had no philosophical problem with large defense budgets. Libertarians, by contrast, want the state out of bedrooms, boardrooms, and foreign countries alike.
- Paleoconservatives: The old-right tradition represented by figures like Pat Buchanan is nationalist, protectionist, and non-interventionist. Paleoconservatives accused neoconservatives of hijacking the conservative movement and dragging the country into unnecessary wars. The hostility was mutual and often personal.
- Religious conservatives: The relationship here was more cooperative but still complicated. Neoconservatives valued religion as a source of social cohesion and moral order, but many of the movement’s founding intellectuals were secular or only nominally religious. They saw the religious right as useful allies in the culture wars while sometimes finding its theological specificity uncomfortable.
- National populists: The rise of Donald Trump represented a repudiation of neoconservative foreign policy from within the Republican base. Trump’s “America First” rhetoric explicitly rejected the democracy-promotion agenda, and many prominent neoconservatives became vocal critics of Trump, with some even endorsing Democratic candidates.
These distinctions matter because collapsing neoconservatism into “right-wing” or “conservative” obscures what made it unique. The movement was always a minority within conservatism, and its influence depended on its members’ positions in specific institutions, publications, and administrations rather than on mass electoral support.
Neoconservatism Outside the United States
Although neoconservatism is overwhelmingly an American phenomenon, its ideas have traveled. In the United Kingdom, the Henry Jackson Society, named after the hawkish Democratic senator from Washington State who was a hero to early neoconservatives, emerged in the mid-2000s as a group of academics, parliamentarians, and journalists promoting a more assertive British foreign policy grounded in democratic values. The Society’s founding statement called for robust support for liberal democratic governance worldwide and attracted members from both the Conservative and Labour parties.5The British Journal of Politics and International Relations. Thinking Ahead: David Cameron, the Henry Jackson Society and British Neo-Conservatism
The British variant had a somewhat different character than its American parent. The UK lacked the same tradition of former leftists migrating rightward, and the Henry Jackson Society initially framed itself as cross-partisan rather than strictly conservative. Over time, however, the organization moved more firmly to the right and focused increasingly on issues like Islamist extremism and immigration. Whether this represents a genuine transplanting of neoconservative ideas or simply a native British hawkishness adopting American branding is debated. Similar questions arise when observers label politicians in France, Australia, or Canada as neoconservative. The label often tells you more about the person using it than about the politician being described.
Common Misconceptions
Several widespread beliefs about neoconservatism are either wrong or oversimplified. The first is that it is simply a code word for Jewish political influence. While many early neoconservatives were Jewish intellectuals, the movement always included prominent non-Jewish figures like Jeane Kirkpatrick, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, William Bennett, and John Bolton. Reducing the movement to ethnicity ignores its intellectual content and often shades into conspiracy theory.
A second misconception is that neoconservatives are warmongers with no interest in diplomacy. The reality is more nuanced. Neoconservatives generally supported diplomatic pressure, sanctions, and coalition-building as preliminary steps. What distinguished them was their willingness to escalate to military action when diplomacy failed and their skepticism that diplomacy alone could resolve threats from authoritarian regimes. They also tended to be more optimistic than realists about the long-term outcomes of military intervention, a judgment that events in Iraq did much to undermine.
A third misconception is that neoconservatism died with the Iraq War’s failures. The movement lost influence, certainly. The intelligence failures, the insurgency, the human and financial costs, and the failure of democracy to bloom across the Middle East all discredited the most ambitious neoconservative claims. Many of the movement’s younger adherents rebranded or adapted their positions. But the underlying instincts, skepticism of authoritarian regimes, support for high defense spending, and belief that American leadership is indispensable for global order, remain embedded in significant portions of the foreign policy establishment. When Western nations debate how to respond to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine or China’s pressure on Taiwan, arguments about credibility, deterrence, and the stakes of appearing weak echo neoconservative themes, even when nobody uses the label.
The Domestic Policy Side
Foreign policy gets most of the attention, but neoconservatism also had a distinct domestic agenda that is often overlooked. Unlike libertarian-leaning conservatives who wanted to shrink the welfare state to nearly nothing, neoconservatives generally accepted the New Deal framework. They did not want to abolish Social Security or Medicare. What they objected to were the Great Society expansions of the 1960s, which they believed had created perverse incentives that trapped the poor in dependency, weakened families, and eroded personal responsibility.
This critique fed into the welfare reform movement of the 1990s, which culminated in the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act signed by President Bill Clinton. Neoconservative thinkers had spent decades laying the intellectual groundwork for that legislation, arguing that work requirements, time limits, and block grants to states would encourage self-sufficiency without abandoning the social safety net entirely. They saw themselves as defending the welfare state from its own excesses, not destroying it.
On cultural issues, neoconservatives were broadly aligned with social conservatives but framed their arguments differently. Where the religious right invoked scripture, neoconservatives invoked sociology. They pointed to rising rates of divorce, out-of-wedlock births, and crime as evidence that the cultural revolution of the 1960s had done real harm, especially to the poor. The solution they proposed was not theocracy but a restoration of bourgeois norms: stable two-parent families, educational rigor, respect for law and order. Whether this program was realistic or merely nostalgic is another question, but it gave the movement a domestic coherence that went beyond simply cutting taxes.
Neoconservatism and the Think Tank Ecosystem
One reason neoconservatism punched above its weight in American politics is that its adherents were unusually skilled at building and staffing intellectual infrastructure. The movement was never a mass membership organization. It did not have precinct captains or phone banks. What it had was a dense network of publications, think tanks, and policy shops that produced a steady stream of books, articles, op-eds, and policy papers, giving neoconservative ideas a presence in Washington that far exceeded the movement’s popular base.
The American Enterprise Institute, the Hudson Institute, and later the Project for the New American Century served as institutional homes where neoconservative scholars could develop policy proposals, cultivate relationships with politicians, and train younger analysts who would eventually staff Republican administrations. Commentary, The Weekly Standard (founded in 1995 by William Kristol, Irving’s son), and The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page provided media platforms. This infrastructure meant that when a Republican president took office, there was a ready-made pipeline of neoconservative policy experts who could move into government positions and translate ideas into action. The George W. Bush administration drew heavily from this pipeline, which is why neoconservative influence was so concentrated in the 2001-2009 period.
The decline of this infrastructure tells its own story. The Weekly Standard folded in 2018 after losing its audience to a Republican base that had moved toward Trumpian populism. Many neoconservative intellectuals found themselves politically homeless, writing for centrist or center-left outlets and occasionally endorsing Democratic candidates. The institutions remain, but their ideological orientation has shifted. The American Enterprise Institute still publishes foreign policy analysis with neoconservative inflections, but it has diversified. The think tank ecosystem that once gave neoconservatism outsized influence now serves a broader and more fractured right-of-center coalition.