“Exporting Democracy”? Neoconservatism and the Limits of Military Intervention, 1989–2008

Abstract

This article challenges the almost universal consensus that post–Cold War neoconservative foreign policy has been characterised by the objective of “exporting democracy” abroad for strategic or moral reasons or both. Instead, the article contends that the touchstone of neoconservatism was the attempt to preserve America's so-called “unipolar moment”—its apparent position as the single pole of power in every region of the world. Moving beyond the abstract and grandiose rhetoric employed by many neocons, the article points out that neocons made a distinction between the respective uses of military and non-military power, arguing that the former should be reserved only for situations where strategic interests were at stake rather than for the sake of ideals. The article goes on to argue that this focus on strategic interests facilitated a close alliance with other conservative nationalists who were also dedicated to maintaining America's position as the single pole of world power. Thus neoconservatism should be analysed and evaluated—by both conservatives and liberal interventionists alike—on the basis that it was a strategy dedicated primarily to preserving American unipolarity, not to the promotion of ideals.