Neoconservatism

A strand of American conservatism, prominent from the 1970s, that pairs an assertive, values-driven foreign policy — using US power to back democratic allies and confront authoritarian regimes — with domestic-policy skepticism of ambitious social engineering.

Many early neoconservatives were liberals or socialists who moved right in the 1960s and 1970s over the perceived failures of Great Society programmes and over the anti-war left's hostility to American power — Irving Kristol's line was that a neoconservative is "a liberal who has been mugged by reality." Domestically the tendency accepted a welfare state in principle while doubting that government could re-engineer society. In foreign policy it argued that the United States should support democratic movements, confront authoritarian and especially totalitarian regimes, and keep its military strong enough to make "peace through strength" credible.

After the Cold War a second generation — associated with the Weekly Standard, Commentary, and the Project for the New American Century — argued that American primacy should be used actively to spread democracy and pre-empt threats. That strand was most influential in the run-up to the 2003 Iraq War, which became the tradition's defining test. Neoconservatives distinguish themselves from Burkean conservatives (who counsel caution abroad), from realists (who weigh interests over values), and from libertarians and national populists (who favour restraint).

The Iraq War is the tradition's central difficulty, and no honest account skips it: the intelligence on weapons of mass destruction was wrong, the occupation was under-planned, and the aftermath included sectarian civil war and the rise of ISIS. Some neoconservatives recanted, some blamed execution rather than premises, and some still defend the decision. Other standing objections are the mixed record of democracy promotion, the tension between preaching democracy and backing friendly autocrats, and the movement's loss of a political home after 2016, when many of its figures became the core of the "Never Trump" right.

Thinkers often cited

Irving Kristol (The Public Interest; "a liberal mugged by reality")
Norman Podhoretz (Commentary)
Jeane Kirkpatrick ("Dictatorships and Double Standards")
Charles Krauthammer ("The Unipolar Moment"; democratic realism)
Robert Kagan and William Kristol (the 1990s case for American primacy)

Internal disagreements

First-generation (1960s–80s: domestic policy and Cold War anti-communism) vs. second-generation (1990s–2000s: foreign-policy hawks)
Democracy promoters vs. "democratic realists" who limit intervention to where strategic interests are at stake
The post-2016 split: Never Trump neoconservatives vs. those who accommodated the populist turn

Common misconceptions

That it is a coherent movement with card-carrying members — it is a tendency with journals and arguments, and the label is often applied by critics rather than claimed.
That "neocon" means anyone who supports a war — not every hawk is a neoconservative; the tradition has specific disagreements with nationalists and realists.
That the term is only a slur — it was self-applied by its founders, though it has also been used as an insult, sometimes with antisemitic undertones because several founders were Jewish.

Read further

Encyclopædia Britannica — “Neoconservatism” — Reference-encyclopedia overview.
Commentary — Primary source: the magazine most associated with the tendency's development (right perspective).
Krauthammer, “The Unipolar Moment” (Foreign Affairs, 1990–91) — Primary source: the classic statement of the post-Cold-War case for American primacy (may ask you to register).
Wikipedia — “Neoconservatism” — Collaboratively edited overview with extensive sourcing; useful for the range of criticism and debate.
The American Conservative — Critique for balance: the paleoconservative magazine founded in 2002 largely in opposition to neoconservative foreign policy (right perspective).

Links were checked when this was written. The web changes — if one is broken, search the same title. Primary sources are labelled with the perspective they represent; neutral references come first.

This describes a tradition; it doesn’t endorse one. Prism uses these write-ups to keep its five framings recognisable to the people who actually hold each position. See how Prism works for what that does and doesn’t claim.