I’m in the middle of a project on the neocons and I’m trying to figure out what the possible stances are in American foreign policy. From what I gather:
In the Republican party:
-Dominated initially by realists(Kissinger) and liberal internationalism
-Until the rise of National Review conservatives who were more hawkish towards the Soviet Union but from a national interest point of view.(Reagan?)
-Supplemented by the neoconservatives who were also hawkish against the Soviets but from an ideological point of view which is why they favored a continued crusade for democracy even after the Cold War ended. As far as I can understand neoconservatism it is unilateral liberal internationalism with a special eye for Israel.
-The Paleocon view came from the National Review conservatives and favors restraint if not non-intervention for the most part. Something closer towards the Old Right position.
Democratic Party:
-liberal internationlists(JFK I think represents this)
-Hawkish branch of realist(zbigniew brzezinski?)
-The New Left anti-interventionists. Sceptial against American intervention unless it is for humanitarian reasons
-Neoliberals. Here I’m a bit unsure because this term means something completely different in Europe. From what I gather it is basically neocons but less confident. Although I’m wondering if this isn’t simply liberal internationalism of the old kind.(Hillary Clinton)
On the right it seems the neocons still control the range of discourse on foreign policy questions and have done so for a decade. I say a decade because George W. Bush wasn’t supported by the neocons and they didn’t achieve the big influence in the administration until after 9/11. After that the mainstream conservative media and the everyday conservative man on the street basically went back into cold war mode with a new enemy. Paleocons became a nuisance but outside of The American Conservative they had little media and generally little influence.
I would gladly appreciate any critique because I doubt I got the full picture.
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