The Soviet Union was more than just a traditional global competitor. It strove to lead a universal socialist alternative to markets and democracy. The Soviet Union quarantined itself and many of its often unwitting captives and clients from the rigors of international capitalism. In the end, it sowed the seeds of its own destruction, becoming in isolation an economic and technological dinosaur. America has emerged as both the principal benefactor of this revolution and the beneficiary.
American values are universal.
Their triumph is most assuredly easier when the international balance of power favors those who believe in them. But sometimes that favorable balance of power takes time to achieve, both internationally and within a country, and in the meantime, it is simply not possible to ignore and isolate other powerful states. The Cold War is a good example. Few would deny that the collapse of the Soviet Union profoundly transformed the picture of democracy and human rights in eastern and central Europe and the former Soviet territories. Nothing improved human rights as much as the collapse of Soviet power.