The period 1980-95 from a leftist standpoint.

[Beet]

What I regret about this period:
1) The Washington Consensus and the notion that the collapse of socialism led elites to drink the false elixir of neoliberalism, which exacerbated inequalities all over the world, and contributed to a number of financial crises between then and now, beginning with the Mexico peso crisis in 1994, and continuing on to various crises to the present day, such as the ongoing Greek depression.

2) The American triumphalism got too out of hand, which resulted in part in the Iraq war, in which at least over 100,000 people died. Arguably this would not have been attempted when the Soviet Union was a player in the Middle East in the 1970s.

What was good about this period:

Despite the above, I would have to say it was a positive period. For one thing, a wave of democratization spread across Eastern Europe, the 300 million people of the former USSR, Latin America, the Iberian peninsula, parts of Africa, and South Africa (and belatedly, Indonesia). This was a positive. The Cold War Soviet Union was a bankrupt dictatorship, and people had to be liberated from it. Europe, where the Cold War ended, is better off than say, the Korean peninsula, where the Cold War simply hardened. In fact, I would say this was one of the most humane periods in human history. The Israelis and Palestinians made moves towards peace; the START treaties reduced nuclear weapons; North Korea even agreed to limit its nuclear weapons; Iran first began moderating with Khatami; genocide prevention, rather than propping up right-wing dictators, briefly came to the forefront of U.S. foreign policy. The notion of Russia incursing into Ukraine was so unthinkable that the latter easily gave up its nuclear weapons. Dozens of countries gave up their nuclear weapons programs during this period. During this period it seemed that a wave of sanity was sweeping the world.

All of this was the culmination of 40-50 years of work by the postwar generation, who were determined to build a new world after the disasters they saw which present generations do not know. In the West, they cultivated the vital center, the social welfare state, and humane social policies, not veering too far in the direction of either capitalism or socialism. RIP greatest generation.