A more subtle point is that politicians in our modern democracy often arrive on the global stage with little applicable experience. Their preparation comes almost entirely from their elite education — which no longer trains them for leadership and diplomacy.

Hill specifically mentions, in one of the later chapters, that business leaders have a better grasp of global consequences than our political leaders. I assume that’s because they’ve come up through a system that regularly deals with global issues — their work isn’t purely domestic before they reach CEO — and because their business-school education is more like Hill’s recommendation, with an emphasis on business cases and not just on the semi-scientific application of statistics.