You can also argue that the policy of containment, however painful, worked. Even though "Communist" governments at one time or another controlled the majority of the landmass in Euraisa, the broken economic ideology, lack of trade, and heavy industries/military first policies (caused by a defensive stance against Western containment) meant that their economies could never develop in meaningful ways.
The Soviet policy of expendable buffer countries meant that there was little incentive to develop those territories beyond administrative and military control further impacted meaningful economic development.
The U.S. on the other hand tried to improve the general conditions of its vassal/buffer states with broad economic incentives -- namely trade access to the enormous and growing U.S. market, at levels far beyond heavy industry and military cooperation -- all the way down to the much larger consumer market. This policy generated tremendous wealth, which was then turned into better militaries. In the cases where local conditions didn't make that possible, the U.S. simply installed a dictator and funded the local military directly -- almost Soviet style.
I think it's important to not think of the U.S. in isolation, just like Soviet Russia can't be thought of without the USSR, the Eastern-Bloc and other Communist allies, the U.S. has to be thought of in similar terms. The U.S. had/has vanguard allies in the Five-Eye countries (U.K., Canada, Australia, New Zealand) each able to contribute military units at the strength of U.S. units, "vassal" states like Germany, Japan, Israel and South Korea -- where the U.S. could stage its military at will, and with each offering robust defensive militaries ensuring permanent beachheads, second-tier allies like Iceland, Italy, Philippines, Colombia, etc. that enabled the U.S. to have robust military supply lines.
The USSR had nothing of the order or integration of this global network. A network so large that it spawned tremendous technological innovation in order to manage communication, monitoring and logistics -- pieces of which broke off to form the Internet.
There's no reason to believe that the U.S. and its sphere won't continue to follow this kind of containment policy against states that it doesn't get along with. But economic prosperity is tempting, and China's more permissive environment and massive economic potential can be a tempting ally disgruntled parts of the sphere might turn to, allowing China (who has sufficient political willingness and economic means) to develop into its own super power.
My bet is that the next country that will matter after that will be India.