This essay will analyze the ‘unipolar turn’ in neoconservative foreign policy thinking from 1989–2009. Its core premise is that the touchstone of neoconservative foreign policy in these years was the preservation of America’s so-called unipolar moment—its post-Cold War status as the single pole of power in every region of the world. This, rather than the export or promotion of democracy, constituted the central organizing principle of neoconservative foreign policy in this period. However, the consensus around the concept of unipolarism began to fracture in the mid-2000s as leading neocon thinkers began to grapple with the American failure in Iraq and the rise of other great powers, which challenged their assumptions about the reach and depth of American power.