Can America Still Get Big Things Done?

“We have become remarkably good at analyzing problems.
The harder question is whether we have become equally good at solving them.”

Every generation seems to have its defining accomplishments.

For those of us who grew up during the early years of the Space Age, it was difficult not to be impressed by what America appeared capable of doing.

In 1961, President John Kennedy challenged the nation to land a man on the Moon before the end of the decade.

At the time, the goal seemed almost impossible.

Eight years later, Neil Armstrong stepped onto the lunar surface.

It was far more than a triumph of engineering.

Government, universities, private industry, and thousands of companies aligned behind a common objective. Millions of Americans followed the program with enthusiasm. Engineers solved problems that had never been encountered before. Manufacturers built hardware that had never existed. New technologies emerged almost monthly.

The remarkable thing was not simply that we reached the Moon.

It was that an entire nation seemed capable of pulling in roughly the same direction.

That raises an interesting question.

Can America still get big things done?

We Have Not Lost the Ability

At first glance, the answer seems obvious.

Of course we can.

American companies continue to produce extraordinary innovations.

We design advanced aircraft.

We build sophisticated spacecraft.

Artificial intelligence research is advancing at breathtaking speed.

Private companies are constructing massive data centers that consume as much electricity as small cities.

New semiconductor fabrication plants are rising across the country.

The engineering talent clearly still exists.

Innovation has not disappeared.

Neither has ambition.

Perhaps the question is not whether America still possesses the capability to build remarkable things.

Perhaps it is whether we still possess the collective willingness—and the organizational discipline—to carry them through to completion.

Roads and bridges often spend years moving through approvals.

Shipbuilding struggles against uncertain funding and changing priorities.

Nuclear plants face licensing processes that can stretch well beyond a decade.

Even ambitious ideas such as sending humans to Mars generate excitement for a while before public attention moves elsewhere.

The capability remains.

Execution is becoming harder.

The Engineering Is Only Part of the Problem

When most people think about a major project, they naturally focus on the engineering.

• Can we design the bridge?
• Can we build the ship?
• Can we construct the power plant?

Those questions remain important.

But they may no longer be the hardest ones.

Today’s projects are as much organizational challenges as engineering challenges.

• Federal agencies.
• State agencies.
• Local governments.
• Environmental reviews.
• Utilities.
• Land acquisition.
• Funding authorities.
• Labor organizations.
• Community groups.
• Courts.

Each participant has legitimate responsibilities.

Each protects what it believes are important public interests.

Yet every additional organization also increases the complexity of making decisions.

Engineering complexity grows linearly with the size of a project. Governance complexity grows exponentially with the number of organizations involved.

Increasingly, the second challenge appears to be the larger one.

Four Bottlenecks

Looking across many of today’s major projects, four recurring themes emerge.

Commitment

Large projects often require many years before meaningful construction begins.

During that time administrations change.

Economic conditions shift.

Public priorities evolve.

Maintaining long-term commitment becomes increasingly difficult.

Apollo survived political transitions because the objective remained remarkably consistent.

That kind of sustained commitment is harder to find today.

Complexity

Modern projects are expected to satisfy many objectives simultaneously.

• Economic development.
• Environmental protection.
• Public safety.
• Historic preservation.
• Regional priorities.
• Labor agreements.
• Community concerns.

Each objective may be worthwhile.

Managing all of them together is extraordinarily difficult.

Incentives

Private companies usually have a straightforward objective.

• Define the project.
• Authorize it.
• Build it.
• Deliver it.
• Earn a return.

Public projects often pursue many worthwhile—but frequently competing—objectives while remaining accountable to numerous organizations and stakeholders.

The result is not necessarily poor decision making.

It is slower decision making.

Continuity

Major projects frequently outlive the people who approved them.

• Leadership changes.
• Funding changes.
• Technology advances.
• Requirements evolve.

By the time construction begins, the project may no longer resemble the one originally proposed.

Alignment Matters

One of the lessons of Apollo was not simply that America could solve difficult engineering problems.

It was that government, universities, private industry, contractors, and much of the public were aligned behind the same objective.

Alignment does not eliminate disagreement.

It shortens the distance between deciding and doing.

Today we often ask projects to satisfy many competing objectives simultaneously while balancing regional interests, environmental concerns, economic realities, legal challenges, and political priorities.

Each objective may be reasonable.

Collectively they make execution far more difficult.

The Difference Between Engineering and Governance

Several current projects illustrate these challenges.

China now builds commercial ships at a pace measured in multiples of U.S. production.

It continues constructing nuclear power plants while expanding ports, rail systems, manufacturing capacity, and artificial intelligence infrastructure.

It is also aligning much of its university system toward engineering, AI, robotics, advanced manufacturing, and other strategic technologies while reducing emphasis on programs viewed as less aligned with future industrial priorities.

Democratic societies will almost certainly choose a different path.

The question is whether they can still produce enough engineers, scientists, technicians, skilled tradespeople, and AI specialists to remain globally competitive while preserving the broader educational mission that universities have traditionally served.

Whether every Chinese project succeeds is almost beside the point.

The world has not stopped building.

The competitive environment continues to move forward.

America faces different challenges.

Interest in nuclear energy is growing rapidly as AI and data centers increase demand for electricity.

Yet licensing, environmental reviews, financing, legal challenges, and changing public priorities often stretch projects well beyond a decade.

California’s high-speed rail project illustrates another aspect of the problem.

Regardless of one’s opinion of the project itself, it demonstrates how difficult long-term execution becomes when funding, land acquisition, environmental reviews, legal challenges, regional interests, and political priorities all evolve over time.

Imagine extending that same rail line across several states.

The engineering challenge might increase only modestly.

The governance challenge could increase dramatically.

The hardest part may no longer be building the railroad.

It may be getting everyone to agree on how—and where—to build it.

A Personal Lesson

When I entered the aerospace industry, there was a widespread belief that difficult engineering problems could be solved if enough talented people focused on them.

That confidence occasionally got me into trouble.

During one staff meeting I casually remarked that if a good engineer couldn’t solve an HR problem in six weeks, I would be surprised.

Management took me at my word.

I was assigned to fix a payroll and personnel system that had frustrated people for years.

It took considerably longer than six weeks.

But the project eventually eliminated several departments, saved the company millions of dollars annually, and was later adopted by other divisions of McDonnell Douglas.

Looking back, I realize the lesson wasn’t really about payroll systems.

It was about believing that difficult problems were worth attacking—and that organizations could change if people were willing to challenge long-standing assumptions.

We Still Build Extraordinary Things

None of this suggests America has lost its ability to accomplish remarkable projects.

Quite the opposite.

SpaceX has transformed the economics of space launch.

Amazon has built one of the world’s most sophisticated logistics networks.

Technology companies continue constructing enormous AI data centers at remarkable speed.

These successes share an interesting characteristic.

They are largely driven by organizations with clear objectives, relatively unified decision making, and strong incentives to execute.

Capability is not the issue.

Execution may be.

Why This Matters

For decades America enjoyed the position of being the world’s dominant industrial and technological power.

Today the environment is changing.

China is competing aggressively in shipbuilding, advanced manufacturing, artificial intelligence, robotics, infrastructure, and global investment throughout Africa, Southeast Asia, and South America.

Innovation without execution changes very little.

Execution without innovation eventually runs out of ideas.

Long-term leadership requires both.

The competition is no longer simply about inventing the future.

It is increasingly about who can successfully build it.

Looking Ahead

I do not know exactly how we regain the ability to execute major projects with the speed that earlier generations sometimes achieved.

The world is more complicated than it was in 1965.

Many of today’s safeguards exist for good reasons.

The future will demand projects every bit as ambitious as Apollo.

• Artificial intelligence infrastructure.
• Advanced manufacturing.
• Energy systems.
• Transportation networks.
• Communications systems.
• Technologies we have not yet imagined.

America still has remarkable engineers.

Remarkable scientists.

Remarkable entrepreneurs.

Remarkable innovators.

The engineering challenges have not disappeared.

They have been joined by systemic challenges that may be even harder to solve.

Perhaps that is the real challenge before us.

Not whether we can imagine bold ideas.

But whether we can organize ourselves well enough to turn those ideas into reality.