June 3, 1997: PNAC Think Tank Issues Statement of Principles

The Project for the New American Century (PNAC), a neoconservative think tank formed in the spring of 1997, issues its statement of principles. PNAC’s stated aims are:
to “shape a new century favorable to American principles and interests”

to achieve “a foreign policy that boldly and purposefully promotes American principles abroad”

to “increase defense spending significantly”

to challenge “regimes hostile to US interests and values”

to “accept America’s unique role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles.”
[Project for the New American Century, 6/3/1997] The Statement of Principles is significant, because it is signed by a group who will become “a roll call of today’s Bush inner circle.”
[Guardian, 2/26/2003] ABC’s Ted Koppel will later say PNAC’s ideas have “been called a secret blueprint for US global domination.”
[ABC News, 3/5/2003]