It's true that it didn't, but one could reasonably argue that such was not its aim. In "the bad old days", the geopolitical rivary was quite clear-cut. Our focus then was the blunting and containment of Soviet (communist) expansionist policies and actions. We had our successes and setbacks along the way, but in the end we succeeded in forcing the peaceful dismantling of a despotic and tyrannical sociopolitical and economic system whose cost in lives and treasure and human misery is to this day incalculable.
No one would argue that things have changed. Our focus needs to be different. I see nothing gained in the way of security or protection of our people by strip seaching grandmothers, confiscating the toys of our children, or wasting time and resources on deporting a citizen of a nation that has done us no harm and wishes us no ill, simply because of an eight day overstay on a visa, especially when we have persons from countries who are known to wish us ill and have so declared coming here in droves and disappearing into the hoardes never to surface again until they decide one day to fly airplanes into buildings. But the PC nazis won't let us take reasonable steps to intercept those individuals, but instead force us to waste time on people who anyone with an ounce of brains and common sense knows pose no threat.
Remember, this Soviet Union is the same evil empire that could not defeat that fearsome opponent Afghanistan after 10 years at war. Neither could the USSR feed or clothe its own population. Now Islamic fundamentalism is the bogeyman we tilt at.
At the close of WWII we were the world's only superpower, a creditor nation, with no threats from any other country, our enemies (and allies like the USSR) devastated. The US dollar was the standard of value and solvency in a world that we had in the palm of our hand.
In the intervening half-century our "leadership" has thrown all that away, maintaining an insane arms race that has bankrupted this country and left us with the tatters of a Constitution and Bill of Rights that you and I both mourn. The tipoff that we are already living in a police state is the near impossibility of getting through the day without having to show someone a pictured ID or disclose a social security number. And we don't have to elaborate on the ordeal that traveling in one's own country, whether by plane or auto, has become.
Our ever-widening trade deficit is one of those non-subjects that is never discussed and won't be dealt with until it's too late. Since we are now a debtor nation consuming more than we produce, it won't take many more generations until the mighty USA has collapsed in the same dust of all empires before us. Personally, I favor a devolution of power and authority from a central government that has done nothing but put us in harm's way for the last 50 years and stuck "we the people" with a national debt that can never be repaid.
Yes, we succeeded in bringing down the Soviet Union, but at what cost?