Despite its controversial influence in American foreign policy and international politics, neoconservatism has received comparatively little attention in IR theory. This article seeks to contribute to a critical engagement between IR theory and neoconservatism by providing an account of the theoretical foundations of neoconservatism and its distinctive approach to the national interest. Examining these foundations reveals a series of areas in which IR can engage substantively with neoconservatism. Perhaps most surprisingly, it also demonstrates the renewed relevance of classical Realists such as Reinhold Niebuhr and Hans Morgenthau, whose thinking not only addressed themes at the heart of contemporary neoconservatism, but who also provided prescient warnings of the dangerous directions in which neoconservative understandings of the national interest could lead.
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