Yes, the fall of the Soviet Union was an influence, although one could argue that it soon became more a shift of political emphasis than cultural change, even here in central Europe. In my younger youth in the US, there was that vague idea of nuclear war, but nothing compared to European awareness of the Russian threat. I wrote about that just before Putin's war of aggression: https://medium.com/gen/viewing-the-ukraine-crisis-from-central-europe-a8c22c71d5a2.

Yes, I think generations is a reality central to cultural regions. Once we start thinking about people through that lens, we start to understand everyone better.