Between nightmares and dreams: The Cold War and neoconservative strategic culture, 1968-2000

Neoconservatives forged a strategic culture during the Cold War. Their strategic culture embodied core values related to the defense of liberal democratic institutions, assumptions about the resilience of totalitarian regimes, and fears of the vulnerabilities of free societies and the political will and military power of the Soviet Union. Neoconservative strategic culture generated a grand strategy imbued with pessimism about prospects for undermining Communist authority in the Soviet bloc and thereby achieving victory in the Cold War. Instead, neoconservatives focused on preventing the defeat of the free world by mobilizing political will, rebuilding American military strength, and challenging the forces of isolationism and appeasement that allegedly paralyzed U.S. foreign policy. From the early-1970s until the Cold War ended, neoconservatives expressed frustration that American leaders failed to recognize the "present danger" of a "window of vulnerability" opening as the Soviet Union gained strategic superiority. They believed that Soviet leaders were poised to lull the West into complacency or intimidate it into quiescence. Either outcome would result in Moscow achieving its goal of establishing hegemony.;The end of the Cold War transformed neoconservative strategic culture. Inflated fears of Soviet power and Western vulnerability and flawed assumptions of the imperviousness of totalitarian regimes to change gave way to lessons derived from the collapse of Communism. The resulting "neo-Reaganite" evolution of neoconservative strategic culture emphasized the universal applicability of liberal democratic ideals and the decisive potential of American power. Neoconservative grand strategy after the Cold War embraced unilateralism and military preponderance to perpetuate U.S. hegemony and shape an international system governed by American ideals. Instead of the world defined by limits that confronted neoconservatives during the Cold War, triumphalist neo-Reaganites perceived boundless opportunities. The elevation of neoconservative strategic culture in the George W. Bush administration following the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington on 9/11 encouraged the imbalance of means and ends that marred the American occupation of Iraq from 2003 to 2007. Neoconservative strategic culture was excessively pessimistic during the Cold War and excessively optimistic afterward.