All of us have heard, although in a different context, that it is not size that matters, but technique… Snicker as much as you like, but that is actually true.

A lioness cannot match a buffalo in one-on-one combat, and a pride of lionesses is certainly outnumbered and “outhorned” (outgunned) by a herd of buffalos. So how can they win despite these odds; how can five to six lionesses disrupt fifty to sixty buffalos to hunt down the one buffalo they want to seize?

Because the buffalos are just a crowd, but the lionesses are a team.

Victory is achieved not by a large but otherwise loitering and incoherent crowd, but by a core-sized, action-oriented and coherent team.

This expression means the number of warriors who do the fighting, and the number of caretakers who sustain warriors so they can do the fighting. Hence, they are called combat troops and combat service support troops, respectively.

If you have no military experience, don’t panic, just pay attention!

A warrior needs ammunition, water, food, clothing, shelter and medicine. Fail to provide him the aforementioned items, and he will stand there empty-handed, dehydrated, hungry, shivering, exposed, and sick, and ultimately, he will die or surrender. Succeed in providing him these items, and he will sustain his function: fighting.

Or think of a football player! While it is true that the player does the “fighting”, he is supported by doctors, nutrition experts, fitness trainers, contract lawyers, financial advisors etc. to ensure his top-notch performance.

Or think of a novelist! While he does the “fighting” for sure, there are typists, editors, travel agents, accountants etc. who keep him on the roll.

The football player and the novelist are the combat troops: the tooth. The others are the combat service support troops: the tail.

As you can see, the tooth is always significantly smaller than the tail. And while it is the tooth that bites into you, his bite would not be a reality without the tail sustaining the sharp and pointy status of the tooth.

The tooth-to-tail ratio is understood not just within the armed forces, but also in any human community, let it be a village, a region, or a country.

By 1944, German forces had been pushed back to their country, and the Allies on the Western front and the Soviets on the Eastern Front were on the verge of entering Germany. It was essential for the Third Reich to mobilize as many able-bodied men as they could to fight for survival.

At that time, Germany had about seventy million residents, and the German forces had about ten million men in arms. That is about 14% of the population, so a minority compared to the remaining 86%. Why did they not set up an army of twenty or thirty million, considering the huge manpower of the Allies and the Soviet Union? twenty or thirty million are more likely to repel an invasion than ten million. The answer is easy — they simply could not afford it.

Or think of North Korea! This country has the highest number of soldiers per capita, meaning 24 million residents and 1.2 million servicemen. That is just a 5% minority, compared to the remaining 95% of the population. Even in this case, the country is staggering on the verge of economic collapse, is kept alive only by Chinese investments, and was plagued by famine in the 1990s, having caused death by starvation to about two million people.

Or think of the United States of America! This country has about 318 million residents and an armed forces of about 1.3 million servicemen; thus the latter forms only about 0.4% of the population. With its perpetual involvement in as many as 160 countries (there are 200 countries on Earth), the upkeep of this tiny 0.4%, compared to the 99.6% of the population, has pushed the U.S. into sky-high debt.

This is what everybody has to understand: you can mobilize all the men you want, but who will provide weapons and food and fuel and medicine for those men if there are no workers and farmers and engineers and doctors? Nobody. Thus, your gigantic army soon will start to crumble and fall apart.

Military history and experience indicate that at any given time, a community can field and maintain no more than 10-15% of the population — they are the “extremists” who do the fighting. Thus, at least 85% will always be “moderates”, a.k.a. average people who seem to just live everyday life and not engage in extreme activities like fighting, but who, in reality, are likely to work hard to maintain the fighting capability of the 5-10-15%.

This is the reason you will never see the majority (51% or higher) of Muslims becoming “extremists” and fighting the infidel — it is a physical impossibility. However, this truth also warns us that the so-called “moderate” Muslims are not moderate because they have chosen that lifestyle, but because they cannot surmount the barrier forced upon them by mathematics and logistics (war material supply).

This was repeated by Muslim scholar Abul Ala Maududi who explained that jihad was not only combat for Allah but all efforts that helped those waging combat (qitaal): “In the jihad in the way of Allah, active combat is not always the role on the battlefield, nor can everyone fight in the front line. Just for one single battle preparations have often to be made for decades on end and the plans deeply laid, and while only some thousands fight in the front line there are behind them millions engaged in various tasks which, though small themselves, contribute directly to the supreme effort.”