Neoconservatism

Neoconservatism is a political philosophy and ideology which combines many traditional conservative opinions with an emphasis on the importance of foreign policy and using American power to push democracy forward. This originated in a number of places - strongly anticommunist liberals, strong support for Israel, dissent from the left. The University of Chicago philosopher Leo Strauss is seen as one of the foundational figures in pushing forward neoconservatism - believing in noble lies (religion being a prime example for Strauss), the telling of which can convince people to act morally.

Roots

Strauss, and many of the neoconservative theoreticians, considered classics a strong foundation of their work.

As mentioned, they also looked to past political philosophy. Strauss emigrated to the U.S. from Germany, where he had written on Thomas Hobbes: "Hobbes's political philosophy is the first peculiarly modern attempt to give a coherent and exhaustive attempt to the question of man's right life, which is at the same time the right order of society."

Richard Perle, in a PBS interview with Ben Wattenberg, agreed, in response to Wattenberg's comment "Irving Kristol said a neoconservative is a liberal who’s been mugged by reality."

Right. And I think that’s a fair description, and I suppose all of us were liberal at one time. I was liberal in high school and a little bit into college. But reality and rigor are important tonics, and if you got into the world of international affairs and you looked with some rigor at what was going on in the world, it was really hard to be liberal and naïve...Anyone who looked at the facts in Nineteen Thirty-six knew what was coming or could at least see that the balance of power was in the process of shifting from one in which the democracies could expect to contain this growing totalitarian threat in Nazi Germany to a balance in which they couldn’t...the indulgence of Saddam led to the invasion of Kuwait.

Post 9-11

Neoconservatism had become especially influential in the United States of America following the 9-11 Attacks. To an extent, it reapplied Cold War doctrine to radical Islamism, also keeping a strong relationship with the State of Israel. Their greatest disciples in the Bush Administration included the secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, the Vice President Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz who were all at one time or another members of the neoconservative Project for the New American Century think-tank. Their influence waned somewhat as the Iraq War dragged on; Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz were replaced in the Bush Administration.

Francis Fukuyama has written that the basic philosophy makes sense but the Bush Administration misapplied it.

Post-Bush

Neoconservative views are not visible in the Obama Administration. Nevertheless, they are seen as "New Right" as opposed to paleoconservatism and libertarianism in the restructuring of the U.S. political right.