Cheap asymmetric weapons can topple vastly more expensive military investments.

Evidence

Whenever a small number of wealthy states invests in exorbitant weapons that nobody else can afford, someone, somewhere, is sure to come up with a cheap way to bring them to their knees, and, every so often, the smallest of weapons manages to topple a Leviathan. Fire ships brought panic and disorder to naval fleets as far back as the fifth century BCE, when the Syracusans took an old merchant vessel, packed it with pitch and pine, set it aflame, and released it to drift downwind into the Athenian navy. — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 441

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘cheating’ concept mirrors biological sneaker strategies described elsewhere in the book; ties directly to the reader’s animal-human warfare parallel. — connects to: Cheap weapons of mass destruction will erode expensive conventional forces; Some elaborate animal weapons are astonishingly cheap to produce and carry; Modern naval weapons cost billions and thus only wealthy nations can field them — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 396 (+5 more)
• SEED: Angle for an essay: cheap disruptive technology as the recurring counterweight to superpower investment spirals, from fire ships to drones.

Related

• Cheap weapons of mass destruction will erode expensive conventional forces (similarity 0.89)
• Cheap weapons can disable the most expensive military technologies (similarity 0.87)
• Cheap long-range weapons eroded the battlefield value of expensive armor. (similarity 0.87)
• Some elaborate animal weapons are astonishingly cheap to produce and carry (similarity 0.81)
• Cheap weapons let untrained commoners overcome heavily armored elites (similarity 0.80)
• Costly advanced weapons deter rivals just like large animal weapons (similarity 0.80)
• An inexpensive weapon made elaborate armor a deadly liability rather than protection. (similarity 0.80)
• Weapon escalation ends when costs outweigh benefits and cheaters invade (similarity 0.80)
• The most expensive weapons serve as deterrents by projecting power globally. (similarity 0.79)
• Cold War weapons costs multiplied simultaneously across every system category (similarity 0.78)
• Biological weapons can now be assembled for a few thousand dollars (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Cheap weapons let untrained commoners overcome heavily armored elites #exemplifies (0.75)