Liberalism means total war because liberalism is an identity based on a belief rather than say blood.

Ideas are geographically unbounded so "unfreedom anywhere threatens freedom anywhere". Thus liberalism must fight to extinction. Ironically "blood" identities aren't this way.

And it gets worse.

You can exterminate a people but you can't exterminate an idea. Illiberalism can always arise spontaneously. And because it's healthy, it surely will. So liberalism must be ever-vigilant. The barest whiff of "authoritarianism" sets off an allergic reaction.

So ironically, liberalism poses as tolerant but is totalizing to a degree unimaginable for a "blood and soil" worldview. The infidels must be —.

Every identity based on affirming a "truth" is this way.

Think about this, and you will understand history at a much deeper level.