Il realismo di Irving Kristol, l’ultimo neocon

Neoconservatism is commonly associated with the 2003 invasion of Iraq and with the conviction that democracy can be exported through military force. Drawing in part on archival sources, this article seeks to examine the profound divergence in foreign policy between Irving Kristol and other neoconservatives, especially those belonging to the movement’s later generations. Kristol’s approach bore little resemblance to either “armed” Wilsonianism or liberal internationalism; rather, it was deeply informed by a realist understanding of international affairs. Yet his realism was neither mechanistic nor deterministic, being instead grounded in a keen awareness of the enduring force of ideas. Although guided by considerations of national interest, Kristol held that the American nation was founded upon a distinctive creed. Such a creed, in his view, was to be preserved as a means of consolidating the domestic order, without any claim to the universal applicability of its values, and even less to a presumed mission of exporting them abroad. From this emerges an apparently paradoxical conclusion: the “godfather” of neoconservatism was also its last authentic representative.