The Berlin Wall collapsed on November 9, 1989. I was in Berlin with my wife the following day with the Royal College of Defence Studies. Berlin was in carnival mood. East Germans streamed through the Wall in their thousands, buying oranges, looking at porn shops and visiting camera stores. This was freedom. Joy was unrestrained.

That first night I bought a small pick-axe and joined hundreds of others chipping away at the Berlin Wall to take pieces as souvenirs and Christmas presents. The West German Police – efficient and law-abiding as ever – stopped us from doing so at one point because “the Wall belonged to East Germany!” As they drove off the chipping restarted.

The world had changed. Optimism abounded. The Soviet empire had collapsed. The Cold War and the fear of mutually-assured nuclear annihilation was ended. This was, as one leading historian famously put it, “the end of history.” With the fall of the Berlin Wall, liberal democracy triumphed. Its spread was inevitable.

But 25 years on, the foundations of world order appear to be crumbling. Anti-democratic forces are on the march. Where has it gone wrong? What happened in this last momentous quarter century? And how has Malta fared?

The first major development was the unification of Germany in 1990, carried out with altruism at great financial sacrifice by West Germany.

The newly reunified Germany has perhaps been the greatest success story of the last 25 years. The new Europe will be “made in Germany” not only because of the changes in Europe Germany wants others to adopt, but also because the future of Germany will itself be made in Europe.

China, true to its ancient method of state power – free of restraint from legal process or competing political parties – adopting a mixture of state capitalism and authoritarianism, has grown to become an economic superpower that rivals the United States. The global centre of gravity has shifted eastwards.

By contrast, Russia has been the greatest disappointment. In 1989, there had been real hope that a liberal Russia would emerge that would be European and might integrate.

Unfortunately, Russia adopted a form of “gangster capitalism” in the 1990s that gave democracy a rotten name. Instead, Russia appears to have reverted to a neo-Soviet form of authoritarianism.

Not only the Crimea and, before that, the war in Georgia, but also now the Ukraine, the Baltic countries, Moldova, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan all find themselves under pressure.

The turning point of the last two and a half decades came 12 years later when the first aircraft flown by Al-Qaeda terrorists hit the World Trade Centre in New York.

This event literally exploded the optimism of 1989. The knee-jerk reaction of President George W. Bush (aided and abetted by Prime Minister Tony Blair) was as ill-judged as it was misguided.

With hindsight it can be seen that American power and influence have been undermined by the failures of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. A heavy price is being paid to this day.

The failure of the Arab Spring and the continued rise of Islamic extremism have shown that the earlier hopes for a new beginning in North Africa and the Middle East were hopelessly premature.

The political upheavals that convulsed the Middle East four years ago astonished the world and prompted hopes that generations of misgovernment and oppression in this region were about to end. Today (except in Tunisia), that optimism has been dashed. In Libya, Nato and the West took sides in a civil war, rather than espousing anything that could genuinely be called liberty – despite the welcome overthrow of Gaddafi.

That first night I bought a small pick-axe and joined hundreds of others chipping away at the Berlin Wall to take pieces as souvenirs and Christmas presents

Democracy may be less likely to prevail there than those who wish to create an Islamic state and impose Sharia law.

Syria remains in turmoil. Egypt has reverted to military rule. Throughout the Middle East and parts of North Africa the beneficiaries of the turmoil have been Islamist jihadist factions.

Worse, the optimism of 1989 has been undermined further by the world financial crisis six years ago.

It is now unarguable that the great financial crash in 2008 was caused by bankers, financial leaders and fund managers, driven by greed and reckless over-confidence, over-stepping the bounds of their mandate. Their hubris consisted in thinking that they were indeed “the Masters of the Universe”, with results of sovereign debt and unemployment which last to this day.

None more so than in the eurozone. It is now palpably clear that the design and concept of the single euro currency was deeply flawed. When it came about in 2002, it was the world’s largest cash change-over in history, a hugely complex multi-national operation that went more smoothly than expected.

But 12 years on, the hype that accompanied the launch has given way to despondency.

The eurozone is buckling under the threatened weight of another recession and unemployment, with France, Italy and even Germany under pressure.

The notes and coins that were meant to symbolise European unity a decade ago are now emblematic of one of the worst crises in Europe’s modern history.

For Malta, which was the place chosen for the historic signing of the agreement between Presidents George H. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev, formally ending the Cold War in December 1990, the last 25 years have been transformational – politically, socially and economically.

In 1989, Malta had begun dragging itself out of the morass of the socialist command economy into which it had been plunged for 16 years. A progressive dismantling of the protective barriers that had formerly limited consumer choice led to economic expansion, which has lasted virtually unchecked for 25 years.

More importantly, except for a brief two-year glitch, Malta’s political path towards accession to the European Union was set.

The pivotal decision in 2003, after a painful and finely balanced referendum campaign on whether or not to join, set the seal on a process which had been put in hand earlier for a “root and branch overhaul of the entire regulatory and operational framework of the Maltese economy”.

The result has led to huge social and economic changes. Malta’s connectedness with the outside world, the structure of its economy, its currency, the less insular attitudes of individual Maltese confident at last of their “European” identity, have led inexorably to a more open society ready to accept the advance of new ideas.

In 25 years, Malta’s GDP has more than trebled. The economy has diversified. The majority of people are better off. Conspicuous consumption is rife.

Too many cars clog our roads. Although considerable strides have been made, the country’s infrastructure still lags behind many European countries.

There has been undoubted private affluence. But also vividly contrasting public squalor – epitomised by the relentless and largely uncontrolled construction development of the last 25 years.

This assessment could not give more than a potted history in 1,000 words. Inevitably, it has been selective and Euro-centric.

Others will enjoy a different perspective. For example, I haven’t even touched on the world-wide web, the greatest engine of change which came into effect 25 years ago and created an information revolution.

But whichever direction one looks, the changes wrought in 25 years have been transformational, and not always for the best.