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The PNAC represented the post-Cold War neoconservative moment, and played a vital role in the intellectual revival of neoconservatism during the second half of the 1990s.

The PNAC (1997–2006) and the Post-Cold War ‘Neoconservative Moment’ Pierre Bourgois Download PDF Feb 1 2020 Extract from an article originally published, in French, in the journal Politique américaine (n° 31, November 2018, p. 173-198). The Project for the New American Century–PNAC, founded in 1997 by William Kristol and Robert Kagan, is generally considered to be a mainly neoconservative think tank. One of the major objectives for the organization, active from 1997 to 2006, was “to promote American global leadership” (PNAC 1997a). During this time, members of the PNAC were looking to develop the emerging “Neo-Reaganian” American policy. According to their “Statement of Principles” published in June 1997, pursuing such a strong interventionist and moral clarity foreign policy is the only way to guarantee the security and greatness of the United States in the 21st century (PNAC 1997b). Throughout its years of activity, the PNAC played an essential role in the construction and consolidation of the “neoconservative network.” Sharing its offices with those of the neoconservative beacon The Weekly Standard, both of which were housed within the walls of the American Enterprise Institute–AEI, the PNAC managed to successfully place itself at the heart of this influential network. Even though several non-neoconservatives actively participated in the life of this think tank, these were the neoconservative ideas which were carried out and therefore put forward by this think tank, notably through its use of “a few in-depth studies and monographs in addition to the famous ‘letters’ that helped bring it to public attention” (Vaïsse 2008/2010, 231). The PNAC was looking to win “the War of Ideas” which had been raging on amongst major U.S. decision makers. This article’s objective is to examine the role and place of this controversial neoconservative think tank. It aims to analyze the PNAC through the prism of neoconservatism, or more precisely, through the prism of the last generation of this school of thought. The PNAC seemed to clearly symbolize what is more commonly referred to as the “neoconservative moment” at the beginning of the 2000s. The Birth of a Think Tank in the Context of Neoconservatism’s Renewal The PNAC was founded in 1997 within a unique context for neoconservatism. Its creation came about in a post-Cold War moment where the school of thought was looking for a second wind. Neoconservatism has been generally associated with a “muscled” foreign policy brought about by George W. Bush’s administration at the beginning of the 2000s. Yet, it was more than that, as it was also a complex movement which was far from a recent development. Neoconservatism finds its ideological origins during the 1930s on the East Coast of the United States, more specifically within the walls of the City College of New York (CCNY) (Dorman 2001). However, it was the evolution of an American left liberalism, during the second half of the 1960s, which in fact, gave birth to neoconservatism (Vaïsse 2008/2010). Former CCNY Trotskyist students such as Irving Kristol, Daniel Bell or Nathan Glazer greatly opposed the “left-hand turn” American liberalism was taking. It was during the 1960s that President Lyndon B. Johnson launched his now-famous “Great Society”. The objective here was to reduce the various inequalities within American society through several ambitious social programs. Above all, the “liberal consensus” of the post-war period seemed to collapse under the weight of the New Left’s focus on identity issues. For these intellectuals who remained anchored to the left, it was thus the entirety of American liberalism which seemed weakened by the movements of the 1960s. Therefore, it was primarily domestic policy which caused the first “neoconservatives” (Harrington 1973) to come together, around The Public Interest or Commentary – only from 1970 for the latter (Vaïsse 2008/2010, 7). However, neoconservatism was going to quickly become “focused on the liberal drift in foreign policy” (Ibid., 9). Faced with the Détente policy propagated by Washington throughout the 1970s, neoconservatives instead defended a hard-lined approach with regard to the USSR. According to them, the United States had to act in order to defend democracy across the globe. They “thought of themselves as guardians of the ‘vital center’: in favor of social progress and civil liberties at home and anticommunism abroad” (Ibid., 8). Faced with the direction taken by American liberalism regarding domestic and foreign policy, a large part of the movement joined the ranks of Ronald Reagan at the start of the 1980s. These thinkers were seduced by its uncompromising approach towards the USSR and attracted by its overall appeal for international democracy. As Jacob Heilbrunn (2008, 162) observes, Reagan “himself has converted to conservatism, and it was natural that he would welcome new converts.” For neoconservatives, it was a unique opportunity to direct American foreign p...

The PNAC (1997–2006) and the Post-Cold War 'Neoconservative Moment' – E-International Relations