Neoconservatism: origins, ideas, and influence in American foreign policy

Neoconservatism has developed into its present form since the late 1960s. At that time, in the face of the Vietnam War and revisionist interpretations of the Cold War in the West, the liberal anti-communist consensus that had until then characterized American foreign policy, and of which the neoconservatives had been a part, collapsed.

Fundamental features of conservatism, such as the primacy of family, home, state and nation, and the emphasis on religion, are also inherent in neoconservatism. Overall, it exhibits a variety of different views. For example, there are strands within neoconservatism that advocate liberal approaches to social policy and state intervention in the economy, while others would like to see these kept to a minimum. Some advocate an aggressive policy of intervention in foreign policy, while others urge restraint in this area. Neoconservatism differs from other forms of traditional conservatism (or conservatism) in key respects, because neoconservative theorists weigh the relationship between freedom and order or tradition and progress differently. Neoconservatism seeks active change rather than mere adherence to the past, and is therefore sometimes referred to as the New Conservative Revolution.

The worldview of many neoconservatives is shaped by Francis Fukuyama's theorem of the "end of history": According to this theorem, Western-style democracy organized in a market economy has historically asserted itself worldwide as a quasi-final social construct. At the same time, conflicts that have passed on or been revived continue to exist (cf. among others Samuel P. Huntington and his thesis of the "Clash of Civilizations"), which must be confronted offensively, if necessary militarily. However, in the "transition to democratic capitalism" postulated by representatives of neo-conservatism, the question of dominance in the "Western camp" itself had to be clarified, because there were European-American antagonisms here. Fukuyama distanced himself from the realpolitik of the neoconservatives. He criticized, for example, the Iraq war of the neoconservative-influenced Bush administration, calling it "Leninist".

Neoconservatism, in the person of leading politicians such as Paul Wolfowitz or Richard Perle, had a formative influence on the outlines of American foreign policy under George W. Bush from 2001 to 2009. These politicians and intellectuals are often regarded as foreign policy hardliners ("hawks") because of their advocacy of military conflict regulation and are seen as the architects of an interventionist unilateralism on the part of the USA. In many cases, these circles also identify an "imperial project" that seeks to secure US hegemony in the world and either replace international organizations as guarantors of world peace or comprehensively transform them - under US "patronage", so to speak. Due to its far-reaching implications, this hegemonic vision is considered by some to be hardly enforceable, especially since it represents - historically seen - in its claim and extent probably the most far-reaching draft of a "New World Order" (George Bush Senior) to date.

The neoconservative political grouping supports rigorous anti-communism and has distinguished itself over the past 25 years in particular by advocating an interventionist foreign policy and unilateral claims to hegemony. At the outset of the Iraq War, Richard Perle published an article in the British Spectator on March 22, 2003, entitled United They Fall, expressing the neocons' position on international institutions and international law. Saddam Hussein's reign of terror, Perle said at the time, was coming to a swift end. But he would not fall alone; in an irony of farewells, he said, he would also bring down the United Nations with him. Not the entire UN would die, but the notion of the UN as the foundation of the "New World Order" would:

In the ruins of Iraq, he said, one can also see the intellectual wreckage of the liberal conceit that security exists through international law, administered by international organizations. It is a "dangerously false" idea that only the UN Security Council can legitimize the use of force.