They fall into group-think where they don't consider possibilities because they're somehow a priori "wrong".
Take the breakup of the Soviet empire. It wasn't foreseen. It was assumed that the constituent countries would somehow be brought back into line. Then it was assumed that hardliners would keep the USSR together. It was assumed that while the USSR had some financial problems and dissent the economy was good enough to hold together for decades and the dissent could be managed.
Some dissident voices in the US said otherwise. In 1992 I watched a AAASS panel in which a bunch of PhDs said they'd been right about the breakup. A young upstart PhD slammed them each in turn. "I pointed out this was a very real possibility in my monograph"--and he had it, and pointed out that on page 350 (or whatever) in endnote 93 to chapter 18 it said, "The highly improbable possibility that the USSR's economy is worse than we suspect can't be entirely ruled out." It was all like that--the State Department people (relying on high-confidence intelligence), the non-government researchers. The intelligence was whacked. When the grey-hairs said that nobody saw it coming, he was ready to shove a list of references written by people *not* invited to the high-powered panel or denied tenure right up their butts.
It's like that on lots of issues. Every group is closed-minded in some ways.
As for classified intelligence going to Trump and then to Putin so we all know about it, it remained classified until somebody leaked it. They got somebody into ISIS? Well, Putin wouldn't tell. But the NYT did. It was Israeli? Well, Trump didn't know; but the NYT told us. The blabbing is less Trump and more the leakers.
It's the intelligence services job to keep Trump abreast. Otherwise he'll still decide, but based on bad info. Then the intelligence folk in the name of keeping the US safe hurt the US. They should do their jobs; the only reason they have the authority to do their jobs is because of the executive authority invested in the President. It's the same as under Obama.
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