I also remember Yugoslavians being allowed to walk across the border without being shot at or detained, and the Solidarity movement in Poland having increasing power without a repetition of the Prague Spring.
Gorbachev appeared to be an honest broker who we could make a lasting deal with. Boris Yeltsin now appears to be as much a CIA plant as Zelensky appears to be. We were told Americans were there to help transform Russia into a capitalist democracy, but now it appears that they were there to further castrate Russia.
I’m sure there are old guy FReepers who served in Germany during the 80s. Mention Fulda Gap to them and you’ll probably still get the small hairs on the backs of their necks to stand up. They will remember what a Warsaw Pact attack meant to them, Western Europe and to the U.S. after the NATO theater nukes started popping off.