I'm not talking about who won. That would sort of be superiority in the context of the war. Although I think it could be argued that the American forces never had superiority at all. From what I've heard, military historians say that George Washingon's greatest strength was in knowing when to retreat. And my understanding is that the American forces got a lot of help from some other countries. Sounds to me like they just sort of wore the British out. But I'll leave that discussion for someone who is much more knowlegeable about military history than me.

I will attempt to rephrase what I said before in a different way so that we don't get entirely bogged down in semantics...

What I am asserting is that with regard to liberals, fighting wars has to do more with making social and/or political changes within a country, rather than trying to be more powerful than other countries, or to have power over other countries. England (the conservatives in this scenario, for the sake of argument) was trying to maintain power and control over the colonies. And it was doing that, in part, because the colonies were a good source of revenue for England to use in it's struggles with the other European countries for supremacy. (Supremacy in relation to the other countries.)

The American Revolutionaries, on the other hand, just wanted to be free of the British, and to have a crack at self determination.