Velocity Without Vision?
Why Rapid Acquisition Still Needs a Compass
“Strategy is Dead.”
That’s the bold claim of Dr. Isaiah “Ike” Wilson III, a soldier-scholar whose career spans combat commands, senior advisory roles, and the academic study of war and peace. Today, he is the Founder of Wilson Strategic Enterprises (WiSE) and a partner and collaborator with Storm King Analytics (StormWiSE). When someone with Wilson’s résumé declares that strategy no longer matters, or at least no longer matters in the way we once thought, it deserves our full attention.
The instinct in defense circles today is to nod in agreement: the world is moving too fast, and old processes are too slow. The acquisition system has often been compared to a glacier, while adversaries move with start-up velocity. Yet even as the Department of Defense (DoD)/(DWAR?) dismantles its most entrenched requirements systems in favor of speed, we must pause and ask: what, if anything, will guide us? If strategy is dead, what replaces it?
Why Ike Wilson’s Voice Matters
Wilson is not an armchair critic. He is a retired U.S. Army Colonel, a decorated combat veteran, and a scholar of strategy with a Ph.D. in political science from Cornell. He served as Director of the U.S. Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute, Chief of the Commander’s Initiatives Group at U.S. Central Command, and as President of the Joint Special Operations University. He also founded the Grand Strategy Program at West Point and authored Thinking Beyond War: Civil-Military Relations and Why America Fails to Win the Peace.
Few people can claim to have shaped both the theory and practice of modern strategy at such a high level. So when he declares strategy “dead,” he is not being glib - he is putting a spotlight on how traditional planning cycles are mismatched with today’s tempo of technological disruption and geopolitical volatility.
Speed at All Costs?
Wilson’s critique aligns with recent moves inside the Pentagon to prioritize speed and relevance. The most visible example is the August 2025 decision to dismantle the Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System (JCIDS). For decades, JCIDS acted as the central nervous system for validating requirements. By ordering the Joint Requirements Oversight Council (JROC) to “stop validating service-level requirements to the maximum extent permitted by law,” DoD leaders signaled that they view JCIDS as more bottleneck than safeguard.
At the same time, Secretary Pete Hegseth’s March 2025 memo established the Software Acquisition Pathway (SWP) as the default for all software procurements. Commercial Solutions Openings and Other Transaction Authorities are now the preferred vehicles, explicitly tilting the balance toward commercial innovation and away from bespoke government-developed software. The logic is clear: why reinvent the wheel when the private sector already delivers usable, scalable tools?
These reforms reflect a fundamental shift, away from deliberative, years-long planning toward adaptive, iterative delivery. In that sense, Wilson is right: strategy, as traditionally practiced, is no longer in the driver’s seat.
But Without a Compass…
And yet, speed without direction has its dangers. The acquisition system of the past two decades was too slow, but it was also built on a recognition that not every shiny object deserved resourcing. Guardrails exist for a reason. If strategy is simply discarded, we risk delivering capabilities that are fast but fragile, numerous but not interoperable, dazzling but strategically irrelevant.
The FY2024 National Defense Authorization Act hinted at this balance, urging the modernization of JCIDS while preserving the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs’ role in shaping joint force design. Congressional directives continue to emphasize mission outcomes and second- and third-order effects, even as they push for agile processes.
This is the paradox: we need both the ability to move fast and the wisdom to decide where to go.
So Where Are the Wise Thinkers?
This is the open question Wilson’s article forces us to confront. If strategy in its old form is obsolete, then what kind of strategic thought, and what kind of strategic thinkers, should replace it?
The environment in which DoD operates today is more politicized than ever. Polarization and short political cycles make it harder to find leaders who can transcend the urgency of the moment to provide enduring guidance. The acquisition reforms underway are meant to empower program managers, engineers, and operators, but where are the voices ensuring that these efforts align with national purpose, long-term deterrence, and stability?
A Note on Decision Support
Answering that question requires not just leadership but also tools that are built to balance speed with judgment. At StormWiSE, we have initiated work on a new kind of decision support platform that addresses precisely this concern. The goal is not to automate strategic thinking but to elegantly integrate humans at the most appropriate points in the process. Machines can accelerate the structuring, filtering, and analyzing of complex data, but it is human judgment that provides context, ethics, and direction. By designing systems where the human remains in the loop, not everywhere, but exactly where it matters, we hope to demonstrate that speed and wisdom are not mutually exclusive.
Conclusion
The death of strategy, as Wilson frames it, may be less a funeral than a wake-up call. Old models of strategy cannot keep up with today’s speed, but neither can speed alone serve as our guide. Recent DoD reforms, dismantling JCIDS, mandating the Software Acquisition Pathway, and prioritizing commercial tools, show just how fast the pendulum is swinging.
The question is not whether to move quickly. We must. The question is whether we can do so wisely. And in today’s politicized environment, where do we find the strategists who can keep us on course?
That is the conversation Wilson’s article invites, and it is one we cannot afford to ignore.