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85-526: Defunct Newspapers Journals TV channels Websites Other Economics Gun rights Identity politics Nativist Religion Watchdog groups Youth/student groups Miscellaneous Other The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) was a neoconservative think tank based in Washington, D.C. , that focused on United States foreign policy . It

170-686: A coup d'état . For example, the French Revolution , the Russian Revolution , and the Iranian Revolution . Foreign-imposed regime change is the deposing of a regime by a foreign state, which can be achieved through covert means or by direct military action. Interstate war can also culminate into a foreign-imposed regime change for the losers, as occurred for the Axis Powers in 1945. Foreign-imposed regime change

255-505: A "Reaganite" policy of "military strength and moral clarity", it concluded that PNAC's principles were necessary "if the United States is to build on the successes of this past century and to ensure our security and our greatness in the next". In September 2000 PNAC released "Rebuilding America's Defenses" a report that promotes "the belief that America should seek to preserve and extend its position of global leadership by maintaining

340-492: A "compelling vision for American foreign policy", which would allow Republican leaders to effectively criticize President Bill Clinton's foreign policy record. During mid-1996, Kristol and Kagan co-authored an article in Foreign Affairs titled "Toward a Neo-Reaganite Foreign Policy" – referring to the foreign policy of President Ronald Reagan . In the article, they argued that American conservatives were "adrift" in

425-480: A New Century. Citing the PNAC's 1997 Statement of Principles, Rebuilding America's Defenses asserted that the United States should "seek to preserve and extend its position of global leadership" by "maintaining the preeminence of U.S. military forces." The report's primary author was Giselle Donnelly , then going by the first name Thomas. Donald Kagan and Gary Schmitt are credited as project chairmen. It also lists

510-404: 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,

595-744: 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

680-753: A global Pax Americana will not preserve itself. According to the report, current levels of defense spending were insufficient, forcing policymakers "to try ineffectually to 'manage' increasingly large risks". The result, it suggested, was a form "paying for today's needs by shortchanging tomorrow's; withdrawing from constabulary missions to retain strength for large-scale wars; 'choosing' between presence in Europe or presence in Asia ; and so on". The report asserted that ll of these were "bad choices" and "false economies", which did little to promote long-term American interests. "The true cost of not meeting our defense requirements",

765-508: A gradual increase in military and defense spending "to a minimum level of 3.5 to 3.8 percent of gross domestic product, adding $ 15 billion to $ 20 billion to total defense spending annually. That amount is at least 17% to 19% or $ 355 billion to $ 386 billion of the US federal tax revenue in 2000 with annual increases of 4–6%. Written before the September 11 attacks and during political debates of

850-552: A great deal and that Strauss's influence caused his students to reject historicism and positivism as morally relativist positions. They instead promoted a so-called Aristotelian perspective on America that produced a qualified defense of its liberal constitutionalism. 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 ),

935-542: 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. 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

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1020-663: 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

1105-724: 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 . Many adherents of neoconservatism became politically influential during Republican presidential administrations from

1190-495: Is no great revelation that they said it in publicly available documents prior to September 2001". Similarly, Abelson has written that "evaluating the extent of PNAC's influence is not as straightforward" as Meacher and others maintain" as "we know very little about the inner workings of this think tank and whether it has lived up to its billing as the architect of Bush's foreign policy". PNAC fellow Reuel Marc Gerecht stated: "We have no choice but to re-instill in our foes and friends

1275-590: Is sometimes used by states as a foreign policy tool. According to a dataset by Alexander Downes, 120 leaders have been successfully removed through foreign-imposed regime change between 1816 and 2011. During the Cold War , the United States and the Soviet Union frequently intervened in elections and engaged in attempts at regime change, both covertly and overtly. According to Michael Poznansky , covert regime change became more common when non-intervention

1360-648: The BBC News . In 2006 former executive director of the PNAC Gary Schmitt said PNAC had never been intended to "go on forever", and had "already done its job", suggesting that "our view has been adopted". In 2009 Robert Kagan and William Kristol created a new think tank, the Foreign Policy Initiative , which scholars Stephen M. Walt and Don Abelson have characterized as a successor to PNAC. From September 5, 2018, till January 13, 2019,

1445-556: 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 . 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 . Critics of neoconservatism have used

1530-818: The Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 (H.R. 4655) which President Clinton signed into law in October 1998. In February 1998, some of the same individuals who had signed the PNAC letter in January also signed a similar letter to Clinton, from the bipartisan Committee for Peace and Security in the Gulf . In January 1999, the PNAC circulated a memo that criticized the December 1998 bombing of Iraq in Operation Desert Fox as ineffective. The memo questioned

1615-459: The Iraq War , a section of Rebuilding America's Defenses titled "Creating Tomorrow's Dominant Force" became the subject of considerable controversy: "Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor." Journalist John Pilger pointed to this passage when he argued that

1700-788: The Judeo-Christian heritage are the essentials of the Great Tradition in Strauss's work. 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. For Strauss, political community is defined by convictions about justice and happiness rather than by sovereignty and force. A classical liberal, he repudiated

1785-754: The Middle East . In 2017, Ted Becker, former Walter Meyer Professor of Law at New York University and Brian Polkinghorn, distinguished professor of Conflict Analysis and Dispute Resolution at Salisbury University , argued that Yinon's plan was adopted and refined in a 1996 policy document entitled A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm , written by a research group at the Israeli-affiliated Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies in Washington. The group

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1870-566: The administration of U.S. President George W. Bush , including Dick Cheney , Donald Rumsfeld , and Paul Wolfowitz . Observers such as Irwin Stelzer and Dave Grondin have suggested that the PNAC played a key role in shaping the foreign policy of the Bush Administration, particularly in building support for the Iraq War . Academics such as Inderjeet Parmar , Phillip Hammond, and Donald E. Abelson have said PNAC's influence on

1955-662: The civil rights movement , racial integration , and Martin Luther King Jr. From the 1950s to the 1960s, liberals generally endorsed military action in order to prevent a communist victory in Vietnam during the Vietnam War . 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

2040-455: 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. Irving Kristol edited

2125-403: 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. 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

2210-570: The "selective" modernization of US forces. The report advocated the cancellation of "roadblock" programs such as the Joint Strike Fighter (which it argued would absorb "exorbitant" amounts of Pentagon funding while providing limited gains), but favored the development of "global missile defenses" and the control of "space and cyberspace", including the creation of a new military service with the mission of "space control". To help achieve these aims, Rebuilding America's Defenses advocated

2295-592: 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

2380-482: The Bush administration had used the events of September 11 as an opportunity to capitalize on long-desired plans. Some critics went further, asserting that Rebuilding America's Defenses should be viewed as a program for global American hegemony . Writing in Der Spiegel in 2003, Jochen Bölsche claimed that Rebuilding America's Defenses "had been developed by PNAC for Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz, and Libby" and

2465-576: 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

2550-673: The Democratic Party, eventually influencing it through the Democratic Leadership Council . 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.) SDUSA leaders associated with neoconservatism include Carl Gershman , Penn Kemble , Joshua Muravchik and Bayard Rustin . Norman Podhoretz's magazine Commentary , originally

2635-534: The George W. Bush administration has been exaggerated. The Project for the New American Century ceased to function in 2006; it was replaced by a new think-tank named the Foreign Policy Initiative , co-founded by Kristol and Kagan in 2009. The Foreign Policy Initiative was dissolved in 2017. The Project for the New American Century developed from Kristol and Kagan's belief that the Republican Party lacked

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2720-409: The PNAC homepage went back online without any further explanation. These are listed on the PNAC website: Neoconservative Defunct Newspapers Journals TV channels Websites Other Economics Gun rights Identity politics Nativist Religion Watchdog groups Youth/student groups Miscellaneous Other Defunct Neoconservatism

2805-422: The PNAC including Richard Perle , Paul Wolfowitz , R. James Woolsey , Elliott Abrams , Donald Rumsfeld , Robert Zoellick , and John Bolton were among the signatories of an open letter initiated by the PNAC to President Bill Clinton calling for the removal of Saddam Hussein . Portraying Saddam Hussein as a threat to the United States, its Middle East allies, and oil resources in the region, and emphasizing

2890-575: The PNAC's January 16, 1998, letter to President Clinton urging "the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime from power", and the involvement of multiple PNAC members in the Bush Administration as evidence that the PNAC had a significant influence on the Bush Administration's decision to invade Iraq, or even argued that the invasion was a foregone conclusion. Writing in Der Spiegel in 2003, for example, Jochen Bölsche specifically referred to PNAC when he claimed that "ultra-rightwing US think-tanks" had been "drawing up plans for an era of American global domination, for

2975-545: 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. 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

3060-643: The Republican who promised to confront Soviet expansionism. Neoconservatives organized in the American Enterprise Institute and The Heritage Foundation to counter the liberal establishment. 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

3145-626: 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. 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 ,

3230-584: The United States as the "world's pre-eminent power", and said that the nation faced a challenge to "shape a new century favorable to American principles and interests". To this goal, the statement's signers called for significant increases in defense spending, and for the promotion of "political and economic freedom abroad". It said the United States should strengthen ties with its democratic allies, "challenge regimes hostile to our interests and values", and preserve and extend "an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles". Calling for

3315-546: 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. Through the 1950s and early 1960s, the future neoconservatives had endorsed

3400-448: The academic literature on the neo-conservative network in the United States". Hammond, for example, notes that though Rebuilding America's Defenses "is often cited as evidence that a blueprint for American domination of the world was implemented under cover of the war on terrorism", it was actually "unexceptional". According to Hammond, the report's recommendations were "exactly what one would generally expect neoconservatives to say, and it

3485-457: The act of overthrowing a foreign government sometimes causes its military to disintegrate, sending thousands of armed men into the countryside where they often wage an insurgency against the intervener. Second, externally-imposed leaders face a domestic audience in addition to an external one, and the two typically want different things. These divergent preferences place imposed leaders in a quandary: taking actions that please one invariably alienates

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3570-501: 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 . During the late 1970s, neoconservatives tended to endorse Ronald Reagan ,

3655-495: The area of foreign policy, advocated a "more elevated vision of America's international role", and suggested that the United States' should adopt a stance of "benevolent global hegemony ." In June 1997, Kristol and Kagan founded the PNAC in order to advance the goals they had first laid out in Foreign Affairs, echoing the article's statements and goals in PNAC's founding Statement of Principles. According to Maria Ryan,

3740-428: 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

3825-636: 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. 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

3910-668: The defense of liberal democracy in the face of its vulnerability. Strauss influenced The Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol , William Bennett , Newt Gingrich , Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas , as well as Paul Wolfowitz . A theory of neoconservative foreign policy during the final years of the Cold War was articulated by Jeane Kirkpatrick in " Dictatorships and Double Standards ", published in Commentary Magazine during November 1979. Kirkpatrick criticized

3995-611: The emasculation of the UN, and an aggressive war against Iraq" in "broad daylight" since 1998. Similarly, BBC journalist Paul Reynolds portrayed PNAC's activities and goals as key to understanding the foreign policy of the George W. Bush administration after September 11, 2001, suggesting that Bush's "dominant" foreign policy was at least partly inspired by the PNAC's ideas. Some political scientists, historians, and other academics have been critical of many of these claims. Donald E. Abelson has written that scholars studying "PNAC's ascendancy" in

4080-679: The eradication of terrorism and its sponsors must include a determined effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq", even if no evidence linked Iraq to the September 11 attacks. The letter warned that allowing Hussein to remain in power would be "an early and perhaps decisive surrender in the war on international terrorism." From 2001 through the 2003 invasion of Iraq , the PNAC and many of its members voiced active support for military action against Iraq, and asserted leaving Saddam Hussein in power would be "surrender to terrorism". Some have regarded

4165-623: The fear that attaches to any great power. ... Only a war against Saddam Hussein will decisively restore the awe that protects American interests abroad and citizens at home". Professor Emeritus Jeffrey Record of the Strategic Studies Institute , in his monograph, Bounding the Global War on Terrorism and William Rivers Pitt , in Truthout argued that PNAC's goals of military hegemony were overly ambitious given what

4250-487: 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. 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

4335-418: The government risks violent overthrow and should expect gradual change rather than immediate transformation. 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,

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4420-458: The individuals who signed the PNAC's statements and letters were not employees or members of the group, and "supporters of PNAC's initiatives differed from case to case." While its permanent staff was relatively small, the organization was "especially well connected", with some of its statements and letters attracting the support of prominent conservatives and neoconservatives. In this regard, Stuart Elden has stated that "The influence that PNAC had

4505-524: 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. 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

4590-438: The letter's signatories asserted that "the U.S. has the authority under existing UN resolutions to take the necessary steps, including military steps, to protect our vital interests in the Gulf". Believing that UN sanctions against Iraq would be an ineffective means of disarming Iraq, PNAC members also wrote a letter to Republican members of the U.S. Congress Newt Gingrich and Trent Lott , urging Congress to act, and supported

4675-601: The light of the Yinon Plan and the Clean break analysis, to be proof that Israel is engaged in a modern version of The Great Game , with the backing of Zionist currents in the American neoconservative and Christian fundamentalist movements. They also conclude that Likud Party appears to have implemented both plans. During the 1990s, neoconservatives were once again opposed to the foreign policy establishment, both during

4760-414: The military can accomplish, that they failed to recognize "the limits of US power", and that favoring the pre-emptive exercise of military force instead of diplomacy could have "adverse side effects." Paul Reynolds made similar observations. By the end of 2006, PNAC was "reduced to a voice-mail box and a ghostly website [with a] single employee ... left to wrap things up", according to a correspondent at

4845-490: The miseries of traditional life are familiar, they are bearable to ordinary people who, growing up in the society, learn to cope. [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. Kirkpatrick concluded that while the United States should encourage liberalization and democracy in autocratic countries, it should not do so when

4930-578: 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. In another (2004) article, Michael Lind also wrote: Neoconservatism ... originated in the 1970s as a movement of anti-Soviet liberals and social democrats in

5015-446: The movement. 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. Earlier during 1973, he had described some of the same ideas in a brief contribution to a symposium on welfare sponsored by Commentary . The neoconservative label

5100-533: The names of 27 other participants who contributed papers or attended meetings related to the production of the report, six of whom subsequently assumed key defense and foreign policy positions in the Bush administration. It suggested that the preceding decade had been a time of peace and stability, which had provided "the geopolitical framework for widespread economic growth" and "the spread of American principles of liberty and democracy". The report warned that "no moment in international politics can be frozen in time; even

5185-428: The newly imposed leader, and the probability of conflict between the intervening state and its adversaries, as well as does not increase the likelihood of democratization (unless regime change comes with pro-democratic institutional changes in countries with favorable conditions for democracy). Downes argues, The strategic impulse to forcibly oust antagonistic or non-compliant regimes overlooks two key facts. First,

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5270-430: The other. Regime change thus drives a wedge between external patrons and their domestic protégés or between protégés and their people. Research by Nigel Lo, Barry Hashimoto, and Dan Reiter has contrasting findings, as they find that interstate "peace following wars last longer when the war ends in foreign-imposed regime change." However, research by Reiter and Goran Peic finds that foreign-imposed regime change can raise

5355-561: 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. Regime change According to a dataset by Alexander Downes, 120 leaders were removed through foreign-imposed regime change between 1816 and 2011. Regime change can be precipitated by revolution or

5440-431: The performance of "'constabular' duties associated with shaping the security environment" in key regions, and the transformation of US forces "to exploit the 'revolution in military affairs'". Its specific recommendations included the maintenance of US nuclear superiority, an increase of the active personnel strength of the military from 1.4 to 1.6 million people, the redeployment of US forces to Southeast Europe and Asia, and

5525-456: 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. 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. O'Neill (2009) notes that Strauss wrote little about American topics, but his students wrote

5610-464: The political arena "cannot possibly overlook the fact" that several of the signatories to PNAC's Statement of Purposes "received high level positions in the Bush administration", but that acknowledging these facts "is a far cry from making the claim that the institute was the architect of Bush's foreign policy". One of the PNAC's most influential publications was a 90-page report titled Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategies, Forces, and Resources For

5695-534: The potential danger of any weapons of mass destruction under Iraq's control, the letter asserted that the United States could "no longer depend on our partners in the Gulf War to continue to uphold the sanctions or to punish Saddam when he blocks or evades UN inspections". Stating that American policy "cannot continue to be crippled by a misguided insistence on unanimity in the UN Security Council ",

5780-557: The preeminence of U.S. military forces". The report states, "advanced forms of biological warfare that can 'target' specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool". In 1998, Kristol and Kagan advocated regime change in Iraq throughout the Iraq disarmament process through articles that were published in the New York Times . Following perceived Iraqi unwillingness to co-operate with UN weapons inspections, core members of

5865-467: The problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq. 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

5950-412: The report argued, "will be a lessened capacity for American global leadership and, ultimately, the loss of a global security order that is uniquely friendly to American principles and prosperity". Rebuilding America's Defenses recommended establishing four core missions for US military forces: the defense of the "American homeland", the fighting and winning of "multiple, simultaneous major theatre wars",

6035-723: 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". In 1982 and around the time of the Lebanon War , a paper known as the Yinon Plan was published under the authorship of Oded Yinon, a senior advisor to Israeli Minister of Defense Ariel Sharon , which called for an aggressive geopolitics aimed at " Balkanizing " Iraq and Syria by provoking sectarian divisions and taking advantage of existing ones in

6120-434: 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. The movement had its intellectual roots in the magazine Commentary , edited by Norman Podhoretz . They spoke out against the New Left, and in that way helped define

6205-471: 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

6290-497: The viability of Iraqi democratic opposition, which the U.S. was supporting through the Iraq Liberation Act, and referred to any "containment" policy as an illusion. Shortly after the September 11 attacks , the PNAC sent a letter to President George W. Bush , specifically advocating regime change through "a determined effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq". The letter suggested that "any strategy aiming at

6375-642: 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. 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), 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". Strauss

6460-438: Was "devoted to matters of 'maintaining US pre-eminence, thwarting rival powers and shaping the global security system according to US interests'". British MP Michael Meacher made similar allegations in 2003, stating that the document was "a blueprint for the creation of a global Pax Americana ", which had been "drawn up for" key members of the Bush administration. Academic Peter Dale Scott subsequently wrote "[PNAC's] ideology

6545-707: 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). 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

6630-584: Was adopted by Irving Kristol in his 1979 article "Confessions of a True, Self-Confessed 'Neoconservative ' ". His ideas have been influential since the 1950s, when he co-founded and edited the magazine Encounter . 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". The term itself

6715-588: Was astonishing", and noted that The number of figures associated with PNAC that had been members of the Reagan or the first Bush administration and the number that would take up office with the administration of the second President Bush demonstrate that it is not merely a question of employees and budgets. PNAC's first public act was to release a "Statement of Principles" on June 3, 1997. The statement had 25 signers, including project members and outside supporters (see Signatories to Statement of Principles ). It described

6800-431: Was codified into international law, leading states that wanted to engage in regime change to do so covertly and conceal their violations of international law. According to John Owen IV , there are four historical waves of forcible regime promotion: Studies by Alexander Downes, Lindsey O'Rourke and Jonathan Monten indicate that foreign-imposed regime change seldom reduces the likelihood of civil war, violent removal of

6885-769: Was directed by Richard Perle , who, some years later, became one of the key figures in the formulation of the Iraq War strategy adopted during the administration of George W. Bush in 2003. Both Becker and Polkinghorn admit that avowed enemies of Israel in the Middle East take the sequence of events—Israel's occupation of the West Bank , the Golan Heights , its encirclement of Gaza , the invasion of Lebanon, its bombing of Iraq , airstrikes in Syria and its attempts at containing Iran's nuclear capacities —when read in

6970-478: Was established as a non-profit educational organization in 1997, and founded by William Kristol and Robert Kagan . PNAC's stated goal was "to promote American global leadership". The organization stated that "American leadership is good both for America and for the world", and sought to build support for "a Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity ". Of the twenty-five people who signed PNAC's founding statement of principles, ten went on to serve in

7055-408: Was summarized in a major position paper, Rebuilding America's Defenses , in 2000. This document advocated a global Pax Americana unrestrained by international law ..." Other academics, such as Donald E. Abelson and Phillip Hammond, have suggested that many of these criticisms were overblown, while noting that similar statements about PNAC's origins, goals, and influence "continue to make their way into

7140-460: 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. Within a few years of the Gulf War in Iraq , many neoconservatives were endorsing

7225-434: 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

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