Read Amity Shales, The Forgotten Man. The best executive qualified, was Hoover( Washington excepted ), and he was bassically FDR/Obama light.
It’s called by economist, ‘The Knowledge Problem’. Like, after WWII, who would know that more Europeans, more Chinese, more countries would be enslaved by a brutal regime, then before the war. Hows that for 50 million killed? How was that for all the bright Harvard/Yale/Cambridge men with the recent memory of WWI behind them.
Just like Korea, where the ventran men and officers were almost wiped out by a China that was starving and was ink wet new country.
The Knowledge Problem even shows up in 9/11, the surprise fall of the Berlin Wall, Saddams attack on Saudi Arabia. Like, didn’t we spend tens of billion per year on so called intelligence?
Or on the recent 2008 financial collapse. Where were the SEC, Fed experts.
You never know, can never plan to know. Do you think Wilson and the allies would of sign a armistice with the Kaiser knowing their sons would die, and Europe destroyed in a generation?
It’s delusion.
I believe that's a matter of opinion. In fact, you can easily find examples in history where good intelligence and knowledge of events and circumstances has been used to avoid catastrophe, or which led to victory in war, or national success in peacetime.
That said, we're beginning to digress here. The only point I'm trying to stress, is that there are certain known, proven, and quantifiable attributes of effective leaders. It would behoove the American people to look for these qualities when choosing our next president.