> The Iron Curtain had fallen; there was hope for Russia to become a democracy, and the weight of living in fear of dying in a nuclear war was lifted.
seems like you are confusing early 00s with early 90s
seems like you are confusing early 00s with early 90s
There was definitely a sense that US hegemony would not be contested by a rival great power, but there was also widespread belief that that hegemony would be undermined and chipped away at by a million insurgent groups and terror cells. IIRC a rivalry with China was speculative and sometimes dismissed as fanciful within the foreseeable future, but we had literal terrorism response drills at my high school. We currently live in the craziest possible international arena, but it's not like the Bush years were some utopia by comparison.
weirdos and nutjobs running their cults. not hyper-rich, deepy engaged technical types.