9/11 shouldn't have happened. The crash of 2007 shouldn't have happened. Covid was predicted yet we were unprepared, or at least very under-prepared. Invasion of Ukraine? Who really saw that coming.
That's the thing about predicting the future...no one gets it right. Ever. Complex systems are unpredictable. We can put odds on things but "no way", in the context of history's lessons sounds naive.
Russia had taken Crimea a few years back and before that some other area, its kinda what they've been doing for a while along with putting in puppet governments in various "independent" nation-states on their borders. Your statement is kinda like a person in the US saying they are shocked/surprised there was a mass or school shooting.
I bet there were experts in various capacities that stated "its only a matter of time before ..." regarding a foreign terrorist attack, pandemic outbreak, etc. happened.
Also US who knew about invasion few months before.
Global pandemic is kinda once every few 100 years think so unlucky for us that happen right now.
History lessons show that to global or even continental conflict you need to have blocks of equal powers (from Ancient Greece (Peloponnesian War as local but "big" conflict) till modern times and Napoleonic Wars/WW1/WW2) and there is no block that can rival US right now (maybe in 10 years if China go back on tracks and push more funds into army)