Predicting the future and future forecasting are different things.<p>There are many forecasting techniques available. The goal is not see into the future, but to see the likely distribution of outcomes that come from decisions and sequence of future decisions.<p>Rumsfeld & Co had idea of what they wanted to happen, and then they twisted everything to justify it. That's just being an idiot. Rudimentary expert-opinion forecasting would have helped. Expert opinion was specially avoided or ignored.
Unknown unknowns are definitely difficult to predict.<p><a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_are_known_knowns" rel="nofollow">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_are_known_knowns</a>
By 2010, the administration I wrote this memo for would totally squander America's opportunity to lead the free world. Not learning from the US-MX war of 1840s or the Vietnam war of 1960s, we embarked on a costly and disastrous military initiative in Iraq. We destroyed privacy with the Patriot Act and crashed the global economy in 2008.
"Predictificationism has lots of difficultants."<p>That prez made words too long, the next spoke them too fast; now we got one that makes them too short.
"For if there is a god it is the future. None can define it while many presume to speak on its behalf. All wish for it to deliver unto them, yet within it lies the destruction of every last one of us."
- Richard Caldwell
i think a case can be made for a new, permanent status quo: America on top followed by China. Continued world peace. Continued dominance of US dollar. Contused low inflation in the US, continued tech innovation, continued dominance of Facebook, Amazon, and Google, etc.