Boxing legend Mike Tyson in the ring.
Image courtesy of Amplix
Mike Tyson once said, “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” Soldiers have long internalized the same truth but in different words, “No plan survives first contact with the enemy,” a lesson paid for in blood and passed down through generations. Dwight Eisenhower, our only five-star general to become president, put it more bluntly, “Planning is essential, but plans are worthless.”
That wisdom matters more today than ever, because the one thing that is certain is that every operational plan the Pentagon approves today will be worthless, the same problem Eisenhower’s generals faced decades ago. The most important question today is whether or not the plans and programs we execute today will leave us at least marginally prepared for the inevitability of that first contact with the enemy?
The root of the problem is this: the newly renamed Department of War, cheered on by Capitol Hill, keeps chasing too many “Hail Mary” science projects – concepts that demand technical miracles and take a decade to ultimately prove themselves impossible. These programs devour billions, breed a false sense of confidence, and starve frontline forces of the reliable tools they need to train and fight. Meanwhile, threats advance and evolve faster than our most accelerated procurement cycles. Today, the Space Force finds itself well out of the starting blocks in a 21st century space race functioning with combat plans and technology developed 20 years ago.
The opportunity cost of embarking on or continuing with these “Hail Mary” programs could not be higher. Every wasted year leaves our warfighters without a new generation of tools they need to deter war today and win wars when it comes to that. While we march in place, and excuse ourselves with the old canard that “space is hard,” our adversaries are exploiting their autocracy’s only advantage: speed, which outpaces our bureaucratic bloat. Even our closest allies now question America’s ability to maintain space superiority, a cornerstone of modern deterrence.
The answer isn’t yet another master plan. It’s resilience. We need an ethos of resiliency, so that when our plans fail, our ability to fight does not. Not a “Plan B,” but a mindset that accepts Mike Tyson’s street wisdom as fact and bakes speed and flexibility into everything we do. That means delivering real capabilities continuously, not chasing miracle programs whose dopamine surges fade almost as quickly as they arose, and rarely if ever even deploy.
To build resilience, three rules must guide how we train and equip the Space Force.
First, we must avoid the intoxicating allure of “Hail Mary” projects that thrill technologists and political elites but require miraculous breakthroughs or take more than three years to field. In today’s tech-driven world, essential institutional backing will never last longer than that. And when it is only self-interested political support that funds it, the program becomes little more than another metastasized tumor that renders the original ambition an unrecognizable mess.
Second, we must always deliver and learn. The only way to stay relevant is to put real systems in the field and learn from the warfighters who both operate and rely on them to fight. When the inevitable punch in the mouth comes, they will at least have both the tools and the training to improvise, adapt, and win.
Finally – and this cannot be overstated – we must reward results, not hype. Slick words with flashy graphics are easy; routinely delivering reliable space capabilities is not. Companies raising piles of private capital and burning it on marketing or one-off prize demonstrations do almost nothing to advance national security. Delivering useful products and services always does.
Our readiness has faced years of neglect (as laid bare by Secretary Meink) and recovery will take years and be a hard slog. The path forward is clear though: Restoring readiness and reassuring allies staring down a menacing threat demands a foundation of resilience: a mindset that acknowledges even the best of today’s operational plans will fail, yet they must still prepares us to succeed anyway. The next punch in the face is coming, and the only certainty is that our current plans won’t survive it, but resiliency – planning on those current plans not going according to plan, will.