It's a very programming-like phrase, actually. Just parse it from the inside out: (isn't (guaranteed to be (a failure)) An equivalent might be "has some chance

It's a very programming-like phrase, actually. Just parse it from the inside out: (isn't (guaranteed to be (a failure)) An equivalent might be "has some chance of success" but that misses the sense that the presumption is failure. More verbosely, the phrase might be: "One might presume that a national program to strengthen an industry would be a guaranteed failure, but this suggests to me that it might have some chance."