Such criticism has led some neoconservatives, such as Fukuyama and Michael Lind, to renounce neoconservatism and to become ardent and outspoken critics. Such criticisms notwithstanding, neoconservatism remains an influential ideology.
Neoconservatism 1 Intellectual influences. Among their intellectual ancestors neoconservatives count the ancient Greek historian Thucydides for his unblinking realism in military matters and his skepticism toward democracy, as well as Alexis de ... 2 Culture and religion. ... 3 Economic and social policy. ... 4 Foreign policy. ... 5 Criticism. ...
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.
Jonah Goldberg argues that the term is ideological criticism against proponents of modern American liberalism who had become slightly more conservative (both Lipset and Goldberg are frequently described as neoconservatives).
And so did Irving Kristol, the founder of neoconservatism, who in August 2003 defined some of the basic assumptions and tendencies of what he characterized as a “persuasion” rather than an outright movement.
Neoconservatism is the first variant of American conservatism in the past century that is in the “American grain.”. It is hopeful, not lugubrious; forward-looking, not nostalgic; and its general tone is cheerful, not grim or dyspeptic. Its 20th-century heroes tend to be TR, FDR, and Ronald Reagan.
There is nothing like neoconservatism in Europe, and most European conservatives are highly skeptical of its legitimacy. The fact that conservatism in the United States is so much healthier than in Europe, so much more politically effective, surely has something to do with the existence of neoconservatism.
Its 20th-century heroes tend to be TR, FDR, and Ronald Reagan. Such Republican and conservative worthies as Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Dwight Eisenhower, and Barry Goldwater are politely overlooked.
Nevertheless, they cannot be blind to the fact that neoconservative policies, reaching out beyond the traditional political and financial base, have helped make the very idea of political conservatism more acceptable to a majority of American voters.
- Its 20th-century hero tends to be Ronal Reagan .
The Bush Doctrine is a phrase used to describe various related foreign policy principles of Bush ( a strategy of "preemptive strikes" as a defense against an immediate threat to the security of the US, the US has the right to aggressively secure itself against countries that harbour terrorists). Neoconservatism.
But there are other agents in the US government that advocate for aggressive, if necessary, unilateral action by the US to promote democracy, human rights, and free markets , and to maintain US primacy around the world. - Actions taken by Bush not because of Neocon agenda but because of terrorist events of 9/11.
And in both cases the presence of substantial oil reserves was not wholly irrelevant despite protestations to the contrary. - Difference is that British rule was open about running an empire, but now few American politicians today would use the "e" word as anything other than a term of abuse.
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". Indeed, to safeguard democracy, government intervention and budget deficits may sometimes be necessary, Kristol argues.
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.
Through the 1950s and early 1960s, the future neoconservatives had endorsed the civil rights movement, racial integration and Martin Luther King Jr. From the 1950s to the 1960s, there was general endorsement among liberals for military action to prevent a communist victory in Vietnam.
v. t. e. Neoconservatism is a political movement born in the United States during the 1960s among liberal hawks who became disenchanted with the increasingly pacifist foreign policy of the Democratic Party and with the growing New Left and counterculture of the 1960s, particularly the Vietnam protests.
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:
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".
Booknotes interview with Irving Kristol on Neoconservatism: The Autobiography of an Idea, 1995, C-SPAN. Irving Kristol remarked that a neoconservative is a " liberal mugged by reality ", one who became more conservative after seeing the results of liberal policies.