Jacob Heilbrunn on Conservatism, Moral Judgment, and the Life of Ideas

Jacob Heilbrunn has spent his career at the crossroads of foreign policy, intellectual history, and journalism—as a writer and long-time editor of The National Interest. Known for his sharp skepticism of ideological fashion and his close reading of power, Heilbrunn has written extensively about realism, neoconservatism, and the enduring temptations of moral crusades in American foreign policy.
In this Pathway Blog conversation, Heilbrunn reflects on developing an independent intellectual voice, the moral limits of interventionism, the erosion of media gatekeeping, and why curiosity and historical literacy matter more than partisan loyalty for young writers entering the field.

This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Finding an Intellectual Voice
Ben Wolf: So to begin: your career sits at the intersection of writing, editing, and foreign-policy thinking. Early on, how did you learn to develop an intellectual voice rather than simply echo existing arguments?

Jacob Heilbrunn: I was interested in foreign policy and American politics at a pretty early age. I have a somewhat combative intellectual temperament. Early on, I was more conservative-leaning in foreign policy—I was essentially an anti-communist, since the Soviet Union existed at that time. The prevailing ethos was more on the liberal side: that it was necessary to accommodate the Soviet Union, curb the nuclear arms race, and avoid open confrontation with the Kremlin. I was headed more in the neoconservative direction.

Kissinger, History, and Power
BW: I know you’ve written a lot about Henry Kissinger. What interests you about him? For me personally, the book that got me first interested in foreign affairs was Walter Isaacson’s biography of Kissinger. I found his story so incredible—so whenever I see anyone else write about him, I’m curious what draws them in as well.

JH: Kissinger was on our board at The National Interest. I found him quite compelling personally in talking with him. He had a grounding and knowledge of history that is lacking in many of his successors. There were intellectual fireworks with Kissinger, and he had this amazing career—going from being an immigrant to the United States, then serving in the U.S. military, becoming a Harvard professor, joining the Council on Foreign Relations, advising Nelson Rockefeller, and then this meteoric rise with Richard Nixon.

BW: Truly an interesting and inspiring figure. You mentioned your early trend toward neoconservatism—and in writing about neoconservatism, you’ve traced how a set of ideas migrated from the margins into the center of power. When you look at today’s foreign-policy debates, which ideas do you think are currently being underestimated but may shape policy a decade from now?

JH: That’s a tough question. I think what has happened is that the set of ideas around Trump are the obverse of the neoconservatives—that the foes of the neocons have now risen to power under Trump with a diametrically opposed set of ideas. The ideas we’re probably underestimating—or not paying enough attention to—are most likely on the left, or in the Democratic Party, if people develop a new set of ideas. I haven’t seen them yet, but it would be interesting, for example, if there were a comeback of Wilsonian idealism, because these things do seem to go in waves in the United States. You have Wilsonianism during World War I, a backlash in the 1920s, and then FDR comes to power, who really is a successor to Woodrow Wilson. America is probably a uniquely protean society—we’re more susceptible to swings than many other democratic countries.

Moral Language and Strategic Judgment
BW: American foreign policy is often framed in moral terms—democracy versus autocracy, good versus evil. That’s driven arguments for interventionism versus isolationism. From a historian’s perspective, when does moral clarity strengthen strategy, and when does it distort judgment?

JH: It definitely strengthened strategy during World War II, where we were battling the locus of evil in the form of Nazism. However, it can also lead you astray, as it did in Vietnam, where we tried to apply the lesson of Munich 1938 to Vietnam. It can turn into hubris. The same thing happened in the Second Iraq War: it was presented as a moral crusade, and practitioners of realist foreign policy tend to shy away from that kind of moralism, because they would argue that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Our objectives in Iraq were not inherently bad, but the idea of performing regime change in Iraq ended up producing an even worse outcome. It was not in America’s interest—the costs far exceeded the benefits for the United States.
So we need to be careful about moralistic language. You saw President Trump indulge in it in Venezuela again—presenting us as the children of light and our foe as darkness incarnate. That can lead your judgment astray when it should be based on a realistic assessment of the geopolitical forces at work. If you demonize your adversary, it means you can never come to an accommodation—and then the result would be war. We obviously don’t want to go to war with Putin’s Russia, for example. Even the Venezuela venture is highly dubious; it appears to be a concocted war, or a looming concocted war.

BW: On that same theme—learning from historic lessons—there’s a common claim that the U.S. never learns from past interventions. From your reading of history, do you think the problem is a failure to learn, or a failure to apply lessons when political incentives point in the opposite direction?

JH: It’s a mixture. I’m convinced that we replicate disasters—every 30 or 40 years, it seems like there will be another Vietnam. And we have a history of imperial interventions at the turn of the 20th century as well. Now, if Trump were actually to go in—it's hard for me to believe he would go in on the ground in Venezuela, but that could turn into another catastrophe. We do have a penchant for ill-advised adventures abroad.
However, it’s also a function of the fact that the United States is extremely wealthy and powerful, and can, in a sense, afford these mishaps—even if they are quite costly. Another country that wasn’t as wealthy, or didn’t possess this military power, would not indulge in these foreign adventures.

Media Incentives and the Overton Window
BW: You’ve worked both as a writer and as an editor. How do today’s media ecosystems shape strategic thinking—for better or worse—in terms of polarization, algorithms, and the broader trends of media?

JH: It’s changed radically. The good part is that the gatekeepers are gone, which means it’s much easier to publish a variety of views—there are far more outlets. The bad news is that the gatekeepers are gone too. It means there’s a lot of rubbish and drivel, and what we’re seeing, for example, is a rise in antisemitism because the filters are gone.
The extent to which it shapes foreign policy—I’m not sure, because the Trump administration right now is almost an autonomous project. I don’t think the officials or President Trump really care what anyone else thinks.

BW: It’s been interesting for me, as someone younger, to watch the rise of the far-right extremist Nick Fuentes and so-called "Groyperism." I heard about him three or four years ago and it was a very small movement—but now I see articles about him constantly. Do you think the trend toward showcasing more radical ideas has changed the news field—monetarily or otherwise? Has it benefited people in media?

JH: It depends what kind of media you’re talking about—but yes, for some. What has happened is that the mainstream media has become more attuned to the right wing. It used to either dismiss it or not cover it at all. Now I think editors have realized the significance of actors—whether it’s Steve Bannon or someone like Nick Fuentes.
It’s interesting: you call Fuentes a far-right extremist. He’s only “far right” as long as he’s seen as illegitimate. His aspiration is to become the right—and that antisemitism becomes a legitimate credential, that it becomes popular, or at least not unrespectable. That gets again to the nature of gatekeepers: is he going to be successful in expanding the Overton window or not? Is what we’re calling “far right” going to be the mainstream right? That’s why you have this battle.
You have Vivek Ramaswamy today writing an op-ed in The New York Times denouncing the Fuentes wing. Okay, great. So there is a struggle going on. The question is, as Lenin said: who wins?

BW: Where do you see the future of the Republican Party?

JH: Not good. I think, as with his other ventures, President Trump is likely to lead us into some kind of catastrophe—whether that is financial, a plague, or a military debacle, or all of the above remains to be seen. But his first presidency didn’t end well. He had COVID, and then he had the January 6th incident. I don’t think this one—his presidency—will end well either; to some degree it appears to be unraveling already.

After the Cold War: Hubris, Retrenchment, and Ukraine
BW: You’ve written about how the end of the Cold War reshaped American expectations of power. Do you think U.S. foreign policy is still reacting to a world that no longer exists? If so, what illusion has been the hardest to let go of?

JH: The biggest flaw after the end of the Cold War was the rise of American triumphalism—the belief that the United States had single-handedly defeated the Soviet Union. The truth, in retrospect, is that we contributed to that struggle, but Europe played a role; dissidents inside the Eastern Bloc and inside the Soviet Union itself were pivotal; and the command economy of the Soviet Union faltered. The system collapsed from within. We added enough pressure from outside to help accelerate the dissolution, but it was not America alone that accomplished this.
That feeling of hubris and triumphalism then led directly to the second Iraq War. I think America has shed much of that triumphalism, but we’ve almost gone too far in the other direction. One of the interesting things about the Reagan era was that he focused on supporting local movements, but not intervening directly—which is sort of how I see the Ukraine war today. I do believe we should support Ukraine in its battle against Russia. I think this is actually the last battle of the Cold War, if you will—but we don’t need to inject our troops directly. So maybe we’ve overlearned the lesson of what took place after the Cold War.

Advice for Young Writers: Expertise, Habits, and Curiosity
BW: For young writers interested in foreign policy, what matters more: deep specialization in a certain subject, or broader historical reading? And how should that balance evolve over time?

JH: Both are valuable. But having specific expertise is extremely useful, because it gives you something other than hot air—to put it bluntly.
On journalism school: I have mixed feelings. In the past it could serve as a way to get into a newsroom. I’m not sure it’s as valuable today as it was then. I actually prefer someone who has an actual education or interest in something—even if it’s exotic. You want to see that the person has a mind working, which gets back to area expertise: if you know something about Kazakhstan that no one else does, or Central Asia, or China, or Africa—whatever it is—that’s a very useful skill.

BW: When you began your career in journalism, what were some early habits or disciplines that led to your success?

JH: Wide reading. Travel, if possible. I focused on Germany and studied German—not just the politics, but also the culture and literature. Intellectual engagement and focusing on improving your writing skills. And if possible, doing some reporting—which gets back to area studies: if you write about something no one else is writing about, you have unique insight into it.
It’s hard, as a young writer, to just write a piece about Russian foreign policy, because there are a lot of people doing that already—and have been for decades. But if you’re an expert on the Russian military, or some aspect of it, or how the Russian economy is functioning—some specific area—and what the broader implications are, those give you unique slices. As far as preparing for a career, there’s no substitute for reading and writing.
I should add one thing: curiosity. Curiosity is what leads you to discover. You have to have this internal drive to learn things. It’s not just that Vladimir Putin, for example, today called the European leaders “swine” and “little pigs”—why is he doing that? What’s going on in the mental makeup? What is this feeling of Russian revanchism? Whence the hostility to the West? What does that exemplify? Those are broad questions, but intellectual curiosity is the key to success in almost any endeavor—Wall Street, Hollywood, whatever it is.

What Heilbrunn Reads Every Day
BW: In addition to historical knowledge, you seem incredibly well read on today's events. You mentioned the Vivek Ramaswamy piece that came out this morning and what words Putin said today. What are your habits in terms of what you read every day? What does an average day look like for you?

JH: As far as reading, I go through The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post. Sometimes the Financial Times has interesting material—I did an interview with them a couple weeks ago. I look once a day at the German press, because I read German. I’m intellectually curious, so I’m looking for information. Obviously I can’t follow the internet all day, but if I’m working on a piece, I also scour the internet for information.
There are articles, books, and journalistic information. I’ll look at British publications too—the London Review of Books, The Guardian. There’s a variety: everything in the U.S. from National Review to the New York Review of Books. I would suggest not becoming too ideologically wedded to one journal as your source of information. I like to have a variety of views. And at The National Interest, we publish opposing pieces. That’s the tradition I grew up in, because I worked at The New Republic for a long time. There’s nothing wrong with publishing a piece one day and, at The National Interest, publishing pieces that denounce something I wrote—because I believe in intellectual fairness. We’ve mutated into a society where people are sitting in their bunkers with guns blazing. To me, it’s preposterous. It’s boring.

Writers Who Shaped Him
BW: Are there any particular figures you love to read now—or who inspired you growing up?

JH: I was a big fan of George Orwell as a kid. His writing is very direct—an original mind, impatient with right and left orthodoxy. As a journalist, he’s a good model. I was also impressed by Winston Churchill. If you read his memoirs--My Early Life, I think is the title—it’s overblown, but dramatic. It’s fun. He’s an incredible writer, and a wild character. The more exotic characters are easier to write for; they’re more colorful, as the journalistic expression goes—they make for good copy.

Challenging Conventional Wisdom
BW: How should young thinkers approach foreign policy without simply inheriting outdated assumptions—liberal, realist, or otherwise?

JH: You’ve got to make your own judgments, and don’t be afraid to say that the conventional wisdom is wrong. This reminds me: Frederick the Great’s motto was “audacity, audacity, always audacity.” A willingness to challenge what other people are thinking can take you a long way.

A Reading Recommendation
BW: Last question--as is customary with the blog: for people interested in the work you’re in, or pursuing a similar career path, what pieces of literature—a book, an essay, a poem—would you recommend, and why?

JH: The book that really influenced me as a teenager was The God That Failed, which has seven or eight essays by famous intellectuals, including Arthur Koestler—first-person essays. You can learn a lot from the journey and self-discovery of other people, especially when it’s raw, like those essays were. That book influenced me quite a bit early on. You could get the same thing with Orwell, because it’s vivid and—in a contemporary expression they wouldn’t have used back then—in your face.

BW: Mr. Heilbrunn, I really appreciate your time. I truly feel like I’ve learned so much in this short period of time we've been talking, and I know our readers will feel the same. I hope we can speak again soon.
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JH: Thank you, Ben. Good luck with everything.