For too long, conservative-oriented people in America have defended unquestioned dogmas inherited from the wars of Wilson, FDR, Truman, and LBJ. Unconditional surrender is a very new idea. It’s a WWII construct that belongs to the Progressive Era, the century of total war and the total democratic state. The concept was first used at Casablanca in 1943, and the war still required a deal with Stalin, resulting in the Soviets in control of Europe for the rest of the century. It is not traditional either. In the Christian west, wars have generally ended in deals since Westphalia. It is not conservative in the American nor European sense. FDR, Churchill, and Stalin are its champions. Yet so-called right-wingers repeat it ad nauseum today in America. But Romney is flat-out wrong here: George Washington did make a deal to end the American Revolution called the Treaty of Paris. The doctrine does not really work either, because our resources are finite, and so is our power. We reached the “end of history,” and then our politicians squandered all of our soft power over the next three decades. Jefferson knew this: “I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power, the greater it will be.”