War
According to research by Ivan Arreguín-Toft, in asymmetric military conflicts (those where one party possessed, on average, ten times the population and armed forces of their adversary) during the past two centuries the weak actors won nearly a third of the time.
When divided into four 50-year periods, strong actors lost to the weak more and more often. By the final 50-year period, the weak won a majority of engagements.
Strong powers excel at large, mechanized, combined-arms militaries in relatively open terrain. But small powers have increasingly used an indirect strategy that trades the protection of population for time.
Of the 202 lopsided conflicts in Arreguín-Toft’s database, the underdog fought conventionally 152 times — and lost 119 of those times. When they used an unconventional strategy they won almost two-thirds of the time. (”How David Beats Goliath,” by Malcolm Gladwell)