In the new Weekly Standard, Irving Kristol, one of the original so called neoconservatives, defines "what it was, and what it is", in The Neoconservative Persuasion. In this excerpt from the foreign policy segment, Kristol asserts three neoconservative "theses":
First, patriotism is a natural and healthy sentiment and should be encouraged by both private and public institutions. Precisely because we are a nation of immigrants, this is a powerful American sentiment. Second, world government is a terrible idea since it can lead to world tyranny. International institutions that point to an ultimate world government should be regarded with the deepest suspicion. Third, statesmen should, above all, have the ability to distinguish friends from enemies. This is not as easy as it sounds, as the history of the Cold War revealed. The number of intelligent men who could not count the Soviet Union as an enemy, even though this was its own self-definition, was absolutely astonishing.