Editing Asymmetric warfare (section)

====Second Boer War====
Asymmetric warfare featured prominently during the [[Second Boer War]]. After an initial phase, which was fought by both sides as a conventional war, the British captured [[Johannesburg]], the Boers' largest city, and captured the capitals of the two [[Boer Republics]]. The British then expected the Boers to accept peace as dictated in the traditional European manner. However, the Boers fought a protracted [[Guerilla warfare|guerrilla war]] instead of capitulating. 20,000-30,000{{Ambiguous|date = January 2015}} Boer guerrillas were only defeated after the British brought to bear 450,000 imperial troops, about ten times as many as were used in the [[Conventional warfare|conventional]] phase of the war. The British began constructing [[blockhouses]] built within [[machine gun]] range of one another and flanked by [[barbed wire]] to slow the Boers' movement across the countryside and block paths to valuable targets. Such tactics eventually evolved into today's [[counterinsurgency]] tactics.<ref name="Dobbie">{{cite journal|title=The Word 'Commando'|first=Elliott V. K.|last=Dobbie|journal=American Speech|volume=19|number=2|date=April 1944|pages=81–90|doi=10.2307/487007 |jstor=487007 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/487007}}</ref>

The Boer commando raids deep into the [[Cape Colony]], which were organized and commanded by [[Jan Smuts]], resonated throughout the century as the British adopted and adapted the tactics first used against them by the Boers.<ref name="Dobbie"/>