Empathy Gap and Strategy

There are many instances in the history of warfare of a seemingly inferior opponent beating a provably superior opponent who had superior numbers or superior technology.  Yet somehow, the inferior opponent came out on top due to a several reasons.   Among some reasons are more resolve or will to win, willingness to sacrifice, patience to wait out the other guy, etc.  One aspect somewhat covered in papers on strategy and psychology/sociology is termed the “empathy gap.”

From Wikipedia page on the subject:  “Further conclusion can be made about empathy gap and power: the weaker party often doesn’t realize that being in a weaker party can actually give them more power to strategically think and make decision, leading to better outcomes. The weaker party has no idea what they are capable of doing. They convince themselves that being more powerful is often more advantageous. Whereas the powerful party lacks strategy and leads to a poor outcome.^"

So translation, the one with superior forces often has the luxury of using brute force methods to get the win whereas the weaker party almost always has to think strategically in order just  to survive.  Being forced to think strategically often then translates into eventual victory for the seemingly inferior force.