I don't understand which nation is supposed to have competent intelligence? Just look at the predictions made for Ukraine, Afghanistan, etc. and how they turned out.

In general it seems to me that we've largely replaced the prior eras of on-the-ground intelligence and entrenched spies working their way up institutions, with digital and satellite surveillance. If anything modern tech and widespread surveillance in many nations may make it much more difficult to have those high level entrenched spies. The times of things like a spy dressing up in disguise to make his way to the telegram station and sending an encoded message are long since gone. Our modern means "feel" so much more private, yet in reality are paradoxically surveilled and broadcast to a million times more people.

It could go a long way towards explaining many things.

Much of the EU misjudged Russia too, even having presumably much of the US intelligence on the matter available to them.

I think the takeaway is that the raw intelligence is much much better, but humans are fallible and made stupid by their priors nonetheless.