President Trump, who rose to power denouncing the architects of the Iraq War, has ended up embracing their worldview.

Donald Trump is often described as a “populist,” a “nationalist,” or as someone who sits outside the traditional ideological categories. However, when one examines his foreign policy closely, a different picture emerges. Trump is, in practice, a neoconservative. 

He is not a neoconservative in the sense we once knew: he does not cloak American interventions in the language of democracy promotion, human rights, or universal values. Instead, he is a neoconservative without the values. What makes him distinctive is not the substance of his policies, but the way he frames them, stripped of the moralizing tone. Oddly enough, this makes his foreign policy more transparent—and perhaps, in some ways, more refreshing.

Classical neoconservatism was never only about hawkish foreign policy. It was about the marriage of power and ideals. The movement argued that American might was essential not just to secure interests but to shape the world in America’s image. Its architects spoke of freedom as a guiding principle and cast interventions as noble missions to uplift societies. The failures in Iraq and Afghanistan discredited much of this idealism, but at least the worldview maintained coherence: American force was justified because it was said to serve universal values.

Trump’s foreign policy, however, looks strikingly similar in its outcomes yet arrives without the pretense. Take Israel. Trump is perhaps the most pro-Israel president in American history. He moved the US embassy to Jerusalem, recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, and midwifed the Abraham Accords. These were all longtime neoconservative priorities. Yet Trump did not package these moves as part of a grand moral project. He spoke of them in terms of deals, strength, and straightforward defense of an ally.

Or consider Ukraine. Despite his soft rhetoric toward Vladimir Putin, Trump approved lethal aid for Kyiv in his first term, a step that the Obama administration avoided. He pressured NATO allies to increase their defense spending, a move that neoconservatives had long demanded to strengthen the transatlantic alliance. Again, this was a policy that fit the neoconservative agenda, but Trump never presented it as a struggle between freedom and tyranny. For him, it was about fairness, deterrence, and not letting America be taken advantage of.

The most striking example may be Afghanistan. Trump criticized “forever wars” and promised withdrawals, but he has also recently floated the idea of returning to Afghanistan after the Biden administration’s chaotic exit. That sounds very much like the old neoconservative argument: American credibility requires intervention. The difference is that Trump does not wrap this position in talk of saving Afghan democracy or defending women’s rights. He says it plainly: America cannot look weak.

Paradoxically, there is an element of honesty in this approach. The Iraq War was sold as an effort to liberate a people and plant democracy in the Middle East. Trump, had he been in charge, might have said instead: Saddam Hussein is a threat, and we will remove him to prove our power. It is brutal, transactional, even cynical—but it is clear. For a public that has grown weary of noble lies and disappointed promises, there may be something refreshing in that candor.

Some will object that Trump cannot be called a neoconservative. Didn’t he run against the neocons? Didn’t he rail against Iraq and promise an end to foreign entanglements? That is the rhetoric. However, upon examining the record, the policies align: strong support for Israel, a tough stance toward Russia, and a willingness to project force abroad when credibility is at stake. In substance, Trump stands much closer to the neoconservative tradition than his “America First” slogans suggest.

The difference lies in the varnish. Neoconservatives insisted that America’s interventions were for the good of humanity. Trump insists they are for the good of America, full stop. That lack of moral varnish is what makes his foreign policy appear so unpredictable to analysts who listen to his isolationist talk while ignoring the neoconservative outcomes.

This raises a provocative possibility: Trump may be pioneering a new phase of American interventionism. Call it value-free neoconservatism. It keeps the hawkish policies but strips them of their missionary zeal. It abandons democracy promotion as a central project, recognizing how discredited it became in the aftermath of Iraq and Afghanistan. Instead, it leans into naked power politics. Interventions are justified because they show strength, secure allies, and prove America will not be humiliated.

For America’s allies, this shift can be disconcerting. They may welcome the support but feel unsettled by its transactional rationale. For adversaries, it is potentially more dangerous because it signals that American force might be wielded without even the fig leaf of moral justification. For Americans themselves, though, the bluntness can feel like a relief. After years of hearing leaders speak about democracy while delivering quagmires, a leader who says outright that power is about power may sound more believable.

The irony is that President Trump, who rose to power denouncing the architects of the Iraq War, has ended up embodying their worldview. He has kept their hawkish instincts while shedding their moral pretenses. In that sense, he is the purest neocon of all: a man who believes in using American strength to shape the world but does not bother pretending it is for anyone but for the benefit of the United States.

That may not make for inspiring rhetoric. It certainly does not make for comfort abroad. But in an era when Americans are deeply skeptical of foreign adventures, Trump’s stripped-down version of neoconservatism might be the only form that can survive politically. It is, in its own way, the most honest expression of what neoconservatism always was.

About the Author: Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili

Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh, directs the university’s Center for Governance and Markets. She is the author of several books, including Informal Order and the State in Afghanistan (Cambridge University Press, 2016).