Cold War

We see very often a view of the Cold War as a war between two more-or-less equivalent superpowers. And the end of the Cold War as a bit accidental victory of one of them. Consequently, the authors explain that it was wrong to "punish" the one who has lost. After all, they explain, he was neither better nor worse than the winner. Those people are nostalgic of the world of the two superpowers, many even seem to regret that the Cold War result was not the opposite.

No. The Cold War was a war of the Liberal Democratic World against the Totalitarian Empire. Totalitarian Empire being ruled by the (Soviet) Russia. And luckily,  the Liberal Democracy has won and oppressed people and nations were liberated. The fundamental mistake of Democracies was not claiming their victory strongly enough, being too weak towards the former enemy and allowing him to keep hope for the regain of its former empire. Now, we are paying the price of that weakness.