Having done some IR work in college while pursuing a mainly CS degree: Even with decades of professional experience as a diplomat or analyst, your sample size

Having done some IR work in college while pursuing a mainly CS degree: Even with decades of professional experience as a diplomat or analyst, your sample size of countries and international situations will be very small. Having both a theoretical understanding of the underlying dynamics, and a broad view of the whole problem space as it has been explored historically, is qualitatively different from the lessons you get on the job.