“When one force is hurled against another ten times its size, the result will be the flight of the former.”
Throwing a small force at a huge one guarantees rout; match the engagement to the ratio.
Chapter 10’s first calamity has the cleanest arithmetic: when one force is hurled against another ten times its size, the result will be the flight of the former. Hurled — the verb indicts the commander, not the soldiers. Flight is what happens to brave people thrown at mathematics. The calamity is a ratio error wearing a courage costume.
A regional bank decides to "compete on AI" by assigning four engineers against the trillion-dollar entrants’ thousands — hurled, with genuine ceremony, into a hundred-to-one fight. The four are excellent; the flight arrives on schedule and takes the form of a quiet retreat into maintenance work. The alternative the verse implies: apply the same four engineers to a segment where the giants’ thousands are structurally irrelevant — a ratio the bank could actually win.
Ratio honesty is not defeatism — Chapter 3 gave the ratio table precisely so that small forces could fight (divide, harass, evade), and asymmetry is its own doctrine. What the verse forbids is frontal hurling at overwhelming strength while calling it commitment. Match the method to the ratio, or the ratio will do the matching for you.