The «Politics of Fear». 1992-2006: ascesa e declino del paradigma neo-conservatore

September 11th marked the end of the «happy era of globalisation», which coincided with the decade immediately following the victory of the Cold War. A paradigm of fear, the keystone of which was the attack on the Twin Towers, returned with a vengeance. Thanks to the neo- conservatives – an intellectual minority that became central to both the public debate and the Bush administration – a foreign policy doctrine was reaffirmed that systematically addressed the theme of existential threat and the neo-imperial role of the United States. Articulating a ‘Reagan’ discursive structure, the nature of the adversary represents a threat around which to reconstruct a doctrinal system and a corollary of political-military action of a unipolar type, in contrast to the multilateralism of the Clinton administration years. Themes, rhetoric, discourses and ideological tools were at the centre of the short season of the political-cultural movement of the so-called neo-conservatives. There was a window of opportunity for the neo-conservatives that opened immediately after 9/11 and then abruptly closed, causing a loss of political-military credibility whose effects are still being felt.