> many academics are often specialized in one area of their expertise and overfit in that dimension

An economist saying a national-security measure costs this much is fine. Where it goes off the rails is in turning costs into damnation without accounting for what one gets in return. In an attention-driven media environment, that sells.

The problem is that there isn't simply an efficient solution for everything. At one point every problem has solutions with pros and cons

France could do it as it is a rich and big country but smaller countries do not have a viable choice. This reasoning could have been applied to France too in another universe.

It's a balance impossible to totally tilt one way or another.

So no amount of extra information could help when it's matter of opinion at the end of the day