From a junior officer's perspective:

We need a better system of historical, political, and military analysis. This means greater tolerance for and encouragement of our national security community's "prophets" (i.e. Rick Rescorla). While the specifics of any particular pending event may be incomplete or unavailable, they nonetheless fit into a general pattern of behavior of that actor. The attack on Pearl Harbor was not Japan's first surprise lightning naval strike against a world power, and the British attack on the French fleet in WW2 was a long-time used strategy of the Admiralty to cripple the use of third party warships by a continental threat. Neither the Battle of France or the Battle of the Bulge was the first time the German army went on the offensive through the Ardennes. Combined with Wilf's point about the predicting "with reasonably high accuracry the capabilities that threats might have and how they will use them", it's just a matter of packaging the analysis and finding someone willing to hear you out. But from the pattern I've seen, our institutions (or institutions in general?) do not have that capability. And the people who should have listened usually say in reply: "hindsight is 20/20". You'd think by now we would have learned to better develop foresight then.

Maybe we need a brain trust not invested (i.e. compromised by its organizational interests) in the system. Kind of like a GAO for strategic thinking.