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Relevant: Dominic Cummings complaints about the UK government and its clownish bureaucracy
https://dominiccummings.com/2014/10/30/the-hollow-men-ii-some-reflections-on-westminster-and-whitehall-dysfunction/
The problem with Western governments isn't that they literally can't find people who know how to spell, or fix lifts, or avoid idiotic wars.
There are plenty of smart people in government and even more who are theoretically available. The whole institutional structure doesn't prioritize doing things correctly. As a collective, they pursue vibes of what they think might be popular amongst their peers (see Team Kamala's decision of why not to go on Rogan). They try to strengthen the power and control of their class and subdue any threats (this is their highest shared priority). They try to deflect all bad outcomes away from themselves. And they like to plot and play politics, diverting national resources for their own internal factional interests. That's how they rise up the ranks.
The key thing isn't scrapping programs or reducing spending but changing the whole incentive structure and culture so that stupid programs aren't initiated and wasteful spending doesn't emerge in the first place. Politicians and officials must not feel safe going 'let's invade this country for made-up reasons' and creating a mess. They must not feel safe wrecking national industries. In the private sector, if you wreck and blunder you end up sinking your company and getting removed from the leadership pool. Ideally you're sifted out through competition before you get into any high-ranking positions. You can't really wriggle out of that (though some manage it).
In the public sector, it's very difficult for even the most effective wreckers to completely destroy a country. Competition between states is quite limited in most places. Responsibility is so diffuse they can lay blame elsewhere. The culture gets more corrupt under the lesser competitive pressure.
To take a less contemporary example, consider Admiral Yi of Korea: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yi_Sun-sin
He was an incredible leader on the battlefield but he was constantly getting imprisoned, tortured and demoted by his jealous rivals and nervous superiors. The Korean governance culture was inferior, it squandered enormous amounts of talent. We can see a similar kind of suppression (albeit much less severe) on Musk under the old regime, despite him clearly being an incredible strength for America. Presumably his European equivalent got suffocated before he even got started.
That's what needs to be changed, the entire mindset. This is very hard to do, creating good institutions in the first place needed hundreds and hundreds of years of bloody wars in Europe. Maybe we could try introducing fearsome anti-corruption commissions and merit-based promotions like they have in China. But even then, there are problems with people gaming the rules: 'if the mayor is fired when a disaster kills 36 people, then all disasters will be reported as killing 35'. That example may not be specifically true but it gives a general impression.
Only a clear and inescapable need for true performance can really get it done. I don't know how to achieve this, apart from warfare or international races to achieve a certain goal.
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