David vs. Goliath

Malcolm Gladwell breaks out a little bit of common sense when looking at how underdogs prevail:

David’s victory over Goliath, in the Biblical account, is held to be an anomaly. It was not. Davids win all the time. The political scientist Ivan Arreguín-Toft recently looked at every war fought in the past two hundred years between strong and weak combatants. The Goliaths, he found, won in 71.5 per cent of the cases. That is a remarkable fact. Arreguín-Toft was analyzing conflicts in which one side was at least ten times as powerful—in terms of armed might and population—as its opponent, and even in those lopsided contests the underdog won almost a third of the time.

In the Biblical story of David and Goliath, David initially put on a coat of mail and a brass helmet and girded himself with a sword: he prepared to wage a conventional battle of swords against Goliath. But then he stopped. “I cannot walk in these, for I am unused to it,” he said (in Robert Alter’s translation), and picked up those five smooth stones. What happened, Arreguín-Toft wondered, when the underdogs likewise acknowledged their weakness and chose an unconventional strategy? He went back and re-analyzed his data. In those cases, David’s winning percentage went from 28.5 to 63.6. When underdogs choose not to play by Goliath’s rules, they win, Arreguín-Toft concluded, “even when everything we think we know about power says they shouldn’t.”

Uh, no shit.  If you are the ragtag Continental Army fighting the redcoats, it is suicide to neatly line up and let the redcoats mow you down.  Likewise with insurgents in Iraq, or even with less athletic teams playing more athletic teams.  That isn't exactly brain surgery.  It is also why I found it so tiring when people complained that Iraqis were cowards for not fighting the US army straight up.  It's not hard to figure out why we were bound to do poorly in Iraq, at least compared to expectations, if people are dumb enough to expect our opposition to be stupid enough to try to fight our fight.

As for basketball, Gladwell points to the full court press as advantageous for underdogs.  While it may help, less athletic teams may easily get schooled by their more athletic opponents while pressing.  I'd go with 3 point shooting and ball-control offense if I'm the underdog.

Here's to the underdogs today.