Cyril Davydenko is a researcher at Bright Blue
Shortly after Trump’s re-election some analysts celebrated the right’s rejection of the messianic neo-conservatism of the Bush era in favour of an ‘America first’ approach. Yet Trump’s decisive rhetoric on Venezuela shows that neo-conservatism can co-exist with MAGA, as long as it returns to its original purpose of championing pragmatic, yet pro-active foreign policy.
Indeed, the history and the substance of neo-conservative thought spans beyond the zealous desire to spread democracy to every corner of the world. In fact, neo-conservatism as an ideology was founded as a rejection of liberal internationalism of Jimmy Carter’s presidency.
Jeane Kirkpatrick, an academic who served as President Ronald Reagan’s Ambassador to the UN, epitomised the, now forgotten, ruthless spirit of early ‘neo-cons’. In her famous essay “Dictatorships and Double Standards”, she argued that America must not shy away from co-operating with authoritarian leaders when they clearly wished to align themselves with the West.
This is not to say that she opposed democratisation — of-course she recognised that autocracies are oppressive and undesirable. However, Kirkpatrick warned against the quixotic demands for democratisation and liberalisation that American liberals imposed on autocratic leaders. In the cases of Iran and Nicaragua, she noted that attempts at democratisation inadvertently installed anti-Western regimes, with the consequences of Carter’s missteps in Iran still felt today.
The essay was likened by Reagan, who soon invited her to serve in his cabinet. Of course, Kirkpatrick’s ideas were not exactly novel — the USA had a long history of co-operating with less than savoury leaders throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, especially in its own region. However, in the 1970s Kirkpatrick’s neo-conservatism amounted to a potent attack on liberal idealism.
Despite the initial success, Kirkpatrick’s flavour of neo-conservatism was soon diluted. At the start of this century the GOP allowed its own breed of idealism to creep into its foreign policy. President George W. Bush, spurred on by his Deputy Secretary of Defence Paul Wolfowitz, embarked on disastrous attempts to ‘spread freedom and democracy’ to Iraq and Afghanistan. Ironically, these invasions aligned the later neo-conservatives more closely with the liberals of the 1970s than with their own forebears — differing only in the means by which they used to ‘democratise’ the world.
Of course, it would be too simplistic to argue that idealism was the only reason behind these ventures. Undoubtedly, the desire to avenge the attacks of 11 September played a role. However, it is also clear that these military campaigns were underpinned by a genuine belief that it is America’s responsibility to strike down foreign despots and install secular democratic government in their place.
In 2025, one does not have to be a hippie leftist to see that those interventions were misguided, and the American public has little appetite for any further messianic ventures. The old platitudes of ‘defending democracy abroad’ now ring hollow for the average Republican. Vice President JD Vance perfectly encapsulated this ‘vibe shift’ when he said that “I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine, one way or the other”. Indeed, how can anyone expect the public to support committing to billions in foreign aid to save the ‘rules-based order’ when they are facing numerous economic and social problems at home?
It might be tempting to attribute growing isolationist sentiments within the Republican base to a lack of global awareness. However, such attitudes risk rendering neo-conservatism increasingly irrelevant in global affairs.
In the end, only by justifying every foreign policy strategy by appealing to the national interests will neo-conservatives stand a chance of convincing Trump and his flock to support certain necessary interventions. This would not constitute a rejection of moral responsibility, but rather a mature recognition of the realities of geopolitics and the complexities of alliance-building.
