Want me to deconstruct each of these for you? I'm happy to, but it's late here so it will have to wait until tomorrow.Things change very quickly without notice all the time (Also people seemingly ignore many changes or pretend they aren't important ). Look how quickly a part of the ME was taken over by ISIS. Look how quickly the Soviet Union went from a world power to falling completely apart. Look how quickly Germany went from a Democratic Republic to a Fascist Dictatorship. Look at the French Revolution etc etc etc. Signs that such things are imminent are always seen very clearly in hindsight but never seem to be noticed in advance.
Short version though? All of your examples were the results of several long term trends and events. None of them happened unexpectedly or suddenly, with the possible exception of the fall of the USSR, which didn't happen suddenly or without warning, and was the result of decades of internal decay... the Sovs knew their system was falling apart long before it actually did. Just the West was so wrapped up in fighting the Cold War that all our analytical assets missed the collapse coming, because they weren't looking for it.
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