Fate's Loaded Dice
We received a lot of feedback regarding last week’s introduction on the role of fate, and the importance of preparation over planning. To prove that fate is not always an obstacle, here are a few examples of how at times fate plays with loaded dice in favor of the underdog.
Most people know the story of Fred Smith, the founder of FedEx, gambling his last $30K in Vegas to meet payroll, or how Elon Musk got a $1.5 billion commitment from Nasa on Christmas eve, preventing SpaceX from declaring bankruptcy. So here is one of my favorite stories on the role fate plays unless you want to call it a miracle.
In the spring of 1967, Israel found itself surrounded by enemies bent on its imminent destruction. On May 14, Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser ordered a full mobilization of Egypt’s armed forces, declaring “Our basic objective will be the destruction of Israel.”
On June 5th the Israeli air force launched a preemptive air strike which destroyed most of the Egyptian air force and disabled almost all of their airfields. Follow-up attacks quickly destroyed the Syrian and Jordanian air forces as well, ending a war that lasted only six days, with a decisive Israeli victory.
As is often the case with war stories, things were not so simple. On the morning of June 9, Israel invaded Syria, which then, as now, was a Soviet Union client state. The next day, Soviet premier Leonid Brezhnev called U.S. President Lyndon Johnson to inform him that the Soviet Union would go to war against Israel if Israel did not withdraw from Syria immediately.
Not intimidated, Johnson ordered the U.S. 6th fleet stationed in the Mediterranean to advance toward the Middle East. In turn, Brezhnev ordered the commander of the USSR’s long-range strategic bombers to use Soviet bombers to annihilate Israel.
The Soviets had four squadrons of bombers stationed in Ukraine, within range of Israel, fully armed and ready to fly within hours. However, Brezhnev required that all Soviet identifying information be removed from the attacking aircraft and their crew, and the Egyptian insignia be painted on the bombers so that in case a plane was shot down, the Soviets could claim they had given the aircraft to the Egyptians, thus avoiding a direct confrontation with the Americans.
Israel was winning the war on all three fronts but was unaware of the overwhelming Soviet force preparing to obliterate it. However, a small problem presented itself to the Soviets: They needed green paint to paint the stars in the Egyptian insignia, and had none in inventory! Thus, the bombers were never deployed that day, and the war was over the next day. For all of Israel’s ingenuity, meticulous preparation, and brilliant execution of the preemptive air strike, one can say it was the lack of a gallon of green paint that saved Israel from total destruction!
We can’t win unless we engage, at which time fate plays a bigger role in the outcome than our well-prepared plans.
— Sina.