In 1997, Kagan co-founded the now-defunct neoconservative think tank Project for the New American Century with William Kristol.[4][6][13] Through the work of the PNAC, from 1998, Kagan was an early and strong advocate of military action in Syria, Iran, Afghanistan as well as to "remove Mr. Hussein and his regime from power."[14][15] After the 1998 bombing of Iraq was announced Kagan said "bombing Iraq isn't enough" and called on Clinton to send ground troops to Iraq.[16]
Andrew Bacevich referred to Kagan as "the chief neoconservative foreign-policy theorist" in reviewing Kagan's book The Return of History and the End of Dreams.[23]
A profile in The Guardian described Kagan as being "uncomfortable" with the 'neocon' title, and stated that "he insists he is 'liberal' and 'progressive' in a distinctly American tradition."[24]
In 2008, Kagan wrote an article titled "Neocon Nation: Neoconservatism, c. 1776" for World Affairs, describing the main components of American neoconservatism as a belief in the rectitude of applying US moralism to the world stage, support for the US to act alone, the promotion of American-style liberty and democracy in other countries, the belief in American hegemony,[25] the confidence in US military power, and a distrust of international institutions.[26] According to Kagan, his foreign-policy views are "deeply rooted in American history and widely shared by Americans".[27]
In 2006, Kagan wrote that Russia and China are the greatest "challenge liberalism faces today": "Nor do Russia and China welcome the liberal West's efforts to promote liberal politics around the globe, least of all in regions of strategic importance to them. ... Unfortunately, al-Qaeda may not be the only challenge liberalism faces today, or even the greatest."[28][29] In a February 2017 essay for Foreign Policy, Kagan argued that U.S. post-Cold War retrenchment in global affairs has emboldened Russia and China, "the two great revisionist powers," and will eventually lead to instability and conflict.[30]
In 2003, Kagan's book Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order, published on the eve of the US invasion of Iraq, created something of a sensation through its assertions that Europeans tended to favor peaceful resolutions of international disputes while the United States takes a more "Hobbesian" view in which some kinds of disagreement can only be settled by force, or, as he put it: "Americans are from Mars and Europe is from Venus." A New York Times book reviewer, Ivo H. Daalder wrote:
When it comes to setting national priorities, determining threats, defining challenges, and fashioning and implementing foreign and defense policies, the United States and Europe have parted ways, writes Mr. Kagan, concluding, in words already famous in another context, 'Americans are from Mars and Europeans are from Venus.'[32]
In Dangerous Nation: America's Place in the World from its Earliest Days to the Dawn of the Twentieth Century (2006) Kagan argued forcefully against what he considers the widespread misconception that the United States had been isolationist since its inception. Dangerous Nation was awarded the 2007 Lepgold Prize by Georgetown University.[33]
Kagan's essay "Not Fade Away: The Myth of American Decline" (The New Republic, February 2, 2012)[34] was very positively received by President Obama. Josh Rogin reported in Foreign Policy that the president "spent more than 10 minutes talking about it...going over its arguments paragraph by paragraph."[35] The essay was excerpted from Kagan's book, The World America Made (2012).
In February 2016, Kagan publicly left the Republican party (referring to himself as a "former Republican"), endorsing Democrat Hillary Clinton for president. He argued that the Republican Party's "wild obstructionism" and an insistence that "government, institutions, political traditions, party leadership and even parties themselves" were things meant to be "overthrown, evaded, ignored, insulted, laughed at" set the stage for the rise of Donald Trump. Kagan called Trump a "Frankenstein monster" and compared him to Napoleon.[37] In May 2016, Kagan wrote an opinion piece in The Washington Post regarding Trump's campaign entitled "This is how fascism comes to America".[38] Kagan has said that "all Republican foreign policy professionals are anti-Trump."[39] In September 2021, Kagan wrote a related opinion essay published in The Washington Post by the title "Our constitutional crisis is already here".[40] He continued his criticism of Trump in November 2023 with another essay in The Washington Post entitled "A Trump dictatorship is increasingly inevitable. We should stop pretending."[41]
^ abPNAC. "Robert Kagan". Archived from the original on March 20, 2012. Retrieved March 18, 2012. Robert Kagan is co-founder with William Kristol of the Project for the New American Century.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
^"About PNAC". newamericancentury.org. 2009. Archived from the original on February 4, 2012. Retrieved March 18, 2012.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
^Kristol, William; Kagan, Robert (January 30, 1998), "Bombing Iraq Isn't Enough", The New York Times, archived from the original on September 7, 2017, retrieved March 17, 2017
^Kagan, Robert (February 6, 2017). "Backing Into World War III". Foreign Policy. Archived from the original on September 13, 2017. Retrieved September 10, 2017.
