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indebted to the European right.
Neoconservative foreign policy begins, for Kristol, with Thu-
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cydides, as Leo Strauss and Donald Kagan taught him. Read the
theses that Kristol marks as central to American neoconser-
vatism: patriotism, zealously cultivated; a fear of world govern-
ment and the international institutions that might lead to it; and
finally, and most revealingly, the ability to distinguish friends
from enemies. These tenets belong not to Thucydides, for
whom world government meant, if it meant anything, the ambi-
tions of Darius, but to a much more recent European, Carl
Schmitt. It is Schmitt, not Thucydides, who regards the distinc-
tion between friend and enemy as the foundation of politics, and
Schmitt who, echoed by Strauss and Kojève, warned of the dan-
gers of world government and international institutions.
Europeans may indeed be skeptical of American neoconser-
vatism, but their skepticism comes not because they have seen
nothing like it but because they knew its progenitors too well.
Neoconservatives want a strong state, and a state that will put its
strength to use, a situation all too familiar to Europe. Neocon-
servatives would have that state ally itself with and empower
corporations, with tax cuts targeted to stimulate the economy.
Neoconservatives reject the vulgarity of mass culture. They de-
plore the decadence of artists and intellectuals. They, though not
always religious themselves, ally themselves with religion and re-
ligious crusades. They encourage family values and the praise of
older forms of family life, where women occupy themselves with
children, cooking, and the church, and men take on the burdens
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Conservatism Abandoned
of manliness. They see in war and the preparation for war the
restoration of private virtue and public spirit. They delight in the
profusion of flags: flags on cars, flags on houses, flags worn in
lapels. Above all, Irving Kristol writes, neoconservatism calls for
a revival of patriotism, a strong military, and an expansionist for-
eign policy.
In its principles, as its principals lay them out, neoconser-
vatism is not the res Americana, the American thing, but a rather
recent European import. Consider again the program set forth
by the neoconservatives. They want a strong state with a
strong leader. They speak favorably of authoritarian leaders and
argue that America would profit from a more authoritarian
democracy. They favor the expansion of executive power. They
want that strong state to have an expansive and expansionist for-
eign policy to, as they say, make trouble in the world. They
hope they plan to establish a new world order to rival Rome.
The new world order will, they recognize, be established not
with the consent of the governed but through force. Military
power is essential to a robust foreign policy, to forging the Pax
Americana. Military power is praised. The neoconservative eco-
nomic program speaks to the concerns of small businesses, small
property owners, and working people. The appeals to ordinary
people are matched by benefits given to the extraordinary: the
wealthiest individuals and corporations. They combine populist
rhetoric with a corporatist strategy. They encourage citizens to
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Conservatism Abandoned
police their neighbors and to inform the government of suspi-
cious activities. They favor the establishment of stronger police
powers and more extensive intelligence at home, with fewer con-
straints and greater powers of surveillance.
What caused Straussian neoconservatives to abandon an older
Anglo-American conservatism for this? Perhaps it was the hubris
bred by too much power obtained too quickly. Perhaps, like Jef-
ferson faced with the offer of Louisiana, they believed that op-
portunity should overcome restraint. Perhaps a conservatism
bred in the American context to be primarily preoccupied with
domestic matters found itself unmoored when considering for-
eign policy. Perhaps fear bred fear until the once conservative
could no longer distinguish friend and enemy in the fog of an un-
ending war. Perhaps it was the allure of empire.
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11 The Sicilian Expedition
In the years after World War II, America found itself not only
great among the nations, as Teddy Roosevelt had hoped, but
an imperial hegemon. America held death in its hand, or so
Americans thought. The sole possession of nuclear weapons con-
ferred a brief unchallenged primacy. There were those who
thought that America should seize the moment of its ascendancy,
suppress the communists by force of arms, and so secure the Free
World. Those who read Thucydides as an admonition feared this
enthusiastic imperial ambition. George Kennan was perhaps the
most famous of those who held to this reading of Thucydides.
America, they argued, should resist the temptation to annihilate
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