False premise. The most important military achievement of the 20th century was accomplished by the military of Franklin Delano Roosevelt...
...the RWnuts' most hated liberal.
And yet war is such a....conservative concept. Although imprisoning the entire Japanese-American population gets props for it's digressive policy.
I hate to put a cramp in your self-aggrandizement, but for at the very least during the past 100 years virtually ALL innovation was the direct result of American business and military development. Hardly the bastions of liberalism that you envision. Perhaps the desire for advancement has never been as benevolent and esoteric as you imagined.