Ad hominem (Latin for 'to the person'), short for argumentum ad hominem, is a term that refers to several types of arguments, most of which are fallacious.
Typically this term refers to a rhetorical strategy where the speaker
attacks the character, motive, or some other attribute of the person
making an argument rather than attacking the substance of the argument
itself. This avoids genuine debate by creating a diversion to some
irrelevant but often highly charged issue. The most common form of this
fallacy is "A makes a claim x, B asserts that A holds a property that is unwelcome, and hence B concludes that argument x is wrong".
The valid types of ad hominem arguments are generally only
encountered in specialized philosophical usage. These typically refer
to the dialectical strategy of using the target's own beliefs and
arguments against them, while not agreeing with the validity of those
beliefs and arguments. Ad hominem arguments were first studied in ancient Greece; John Locke revived the examination of ad hominem arguments in the 17th century. Many contemporary politicians routinely use ad hominem attacks, which can be encapsulated to a derogatory nickname for a political opponent.
History
Aristotle (384–322 BC) is credited with raising the distinction between personal and logical arguments.
The various types of ad hominem arguments have been known in the West since at least the ancient Greeks. Aristotle, in his work Sophistical Refutations, detailed the fallaciousness of putting the questioner but not the argument under scrutiny. His description was somewhat different from the modern understanding, referring to a class of sophistry
that applies an ambiguously worded question about people to a specific
person. The proper refutation, he wrote, is not to debate the attributes
of the person (solutio ad hominem) but to address the original ambiguity. Many examples of ancient non-fallacious ad hominem arguments are preserved in the works of the Pyrrhonist philosopher Sextus Empiricus.
In these arguments, the concepts and assumptions of the opponents are
used as part of a dialectical strategy against them to demonstrate the
unsoundness of their own arguments and assumptions. In this way, the
arguments are to the person (ad hominem), but without attacking the properties of the individuals making the arguments. This kind of argument is also known as "argument from commitment".
Italian polymath Galileo Galilei and British philosopher John Locke also examined the argument from commitment, a form of the ad hominem
argument, meaning examining an argument on the basis of whether it
stands true to the principles of the person carrying the argument. In
the mid-19th century, the modern understanding of the term ad hominem started to take shape, with the broad definition given by English logician Richard Whately. According to Whately, ad hominem arguments were "addressed to the peculiar circumstances, character, avowed opinions, or past conduct of the individual".
Over time, the term acquired a different meaning; by the
beginning of the 20th century, it was linked to a logical fallacy, in
which a debater, instead of disproving an argument, attacked their
opponent. This approach was also popularized in philosophical textbooks
of the mid-20th century, and it was challenged by Australian philosopher Charles Leonard Hamblin
in the second half of the 20th century. In a detailed work, he
suggested that the inclusion of a statement against a person in an
argument does not necessarily make it a fallacious argument since that
particular phrase is not a premise that leads to a conclusion. While
Hablin's criticism was not widely accepted, Canadian philosopher Douglas N. Walton examined the fallaciousness of the ad hominem argument even further. Nowadays, except within specialized philosophical usages, the usage of the term ad hominem signifies a straight attack at the character and ethos of a person, in an attempt to refute their argument.
Terminology
The Latin phase argumentum ad hominem stands for "argument against the person". "Ad" corresponds to "against" but it could also mean "to" or "towards".
The terms ad mulierem and ad feminam have been used specifically when the person receiving the criticism is female.
Ad hominem fallacies can be separated in various different types, among others are tu quoque, circumstantial, guilt by association, and abusive ad hominem. All of them are similar to the general scheme of ad hominem
argument, that is instead of dealing with the essence of someone's
argument or trying to refute it, the interlocutor is attacking the
character of the proponent of the argument and concluding that it is a
sufficient reason to drop the initial argument.
Ad hominem tu quoque (literally: "You also") is a response to a personal attack (or ad hominem argument) that itself is a personal attack.
Tu quoque appears as:
A makes a claim a.
B attacks the character of A by saying they hold a property x, which is bad.
A defends themself by attacking B, saying they also hold the same property x.
Here is an example given by philosophy professor George Wrisley to
illustrate the above: A businessman and politician is giving a lecture
at a University about how good his company is and how nicely the system
works. A student asks him "Is it true that you and your company are
selling weapons to third world rulers who use those arms against their
own people?" and the businessman replies "is it true that your
university gets funding by the same company that you are claiming is
selling guns to those countries? You are not a white dove either". The ad hominem
accusation of the student is relevant to the narrative the businessman
tries to project thus not fallacious. On the other hand, the attack on
the student (that is, the student being inconsistent) is irrelevant to
the opening narrative. So the businessman's tu quoque response is fallacious.
Canadian philosopher Christopher Tindale approaches somewhat different the tu quoque fallacy. According to Tindale, a tu quoque
fallacy appears when a response to an argument is made on the history
of the arguer. This argument is also invalid because it does not
disprove the premise; if the premise is true, then source A may be a hypocrite
or even changed their mind, but this does not make the statement less
credible from a logical perspective. A common example, given by Tindale,
is when a doctor advises a patient to lose weight, but the patient
argues that there is no need for him to go on a diet because the doctor
is also overweight.
Circumstantial ad hominem points out that someone is in
circumstances (for instance, their job, wealth, property, or relations)
such that they are disposed to take a particular position. It
constitutes an attack on the bias of a source. As with other types of ad hominem
attack, circumstantial attack could be fallacious or not. It could be
fallacious because a disposition to make a certain argument does not
make the argument invalid; this overlaps with the genetic fallacy (an
argument that a claim is incorrect due to its source). But it also may
be a sound argument, if the premises are correct and the bias is
relevant to the argument.
A simple example is: a father may tell his daughter not to start
smoking because she will damage her health, and she may point out that
he is or was a smoker. This does not alter the fact that smoking might
cause various diseases. Her father's inconsistency is not a proper
reason to reject his claim.
Philosopher and pundit on informal fallacies Douglas N. Walton argues that a circumstantial ad hominem
argument can be non-fallacious. This could be the case when someone (A)
attacks the personality of another person (B), making an argument (a)
while the personality of B is relevant to argument a, i.e. B talks as an
authority figure.
To illustrate this reasoning, Walton gives the example of a witness at a
trial: if he had been caught lying and cheating in his own life, should
the jury take his word for granted? No, according to Walton.
Guilt by association, that is accusing an arguer because of his
alleged connection with a discredited person or group, can sometimes
also be a type of ad hominem fallacy when the argument attacks a
source because of the similarity between the views of someone making an
argument and other proponents of the argument.
This form of the argument is as follows:
Individual S makes claim C.
Individual S is also associated with Group G, who has an unfavorable reputation
Therefore, individual S and his views are questionable.
Academic Leigh Kolb gives as an example that the 2008 US vice‐presidential candidate Sarah Palin attacked Barack Obama for having worked with Bill Ayers, who had been a leader in the Weather Underground
terrorist group in the 1960s. Despite Obama denouncing every act of
terrorism, he was still associated by his opponents with terrorism.
Guilt by association is frequently found in social and political
debates. It also appears after major events (such as scandals and
terrorism) linked to a specific group. An example, given also by Leigh
Kolb, is the peak of attacks against Muslims in the US after the September 11 attacks.
Abusive ad hominem argument (or direct ad hominem) is
associated with an attack to the character of the person carrying an
argument. This kind of argument, besides usually being fallacious, is
also counterproductive, as a proper dialogue is hard to achieve after
such an attack.
Key issues in examining an argument to determine whether it is an ad hominem
fallacy or not are whether the accusation against the person stands
true or not, and whether the accusation is relevant to the argument. An
example is a dialogue at the court, where the attorney cross-examines an
eyewitness, bringing to light the fact that the witness was convicted
in the past for lying. If the attorney's conclusion is that the witness
is lying, that would be wrong. But if his argument would be that the
witness should not be trusted, that would not be a fallacy.
Argument from commitment
An ad hominem
argument from commitment is a type of valid argument that employs, as a
dialectical strategy, the exclusive utilization of the beliefs,
convictions, and assumptions of those holding the position being argued
against, i.e., arguments constructed on the basis of what other people
hold to be true. This usage is generally only encountered in specialist
philosophical usage or in pre-20th century usages. This type of argument is also known as the ex concessis argument (Latin for "from what has been conceded already").
Usage in debates
Ad hominem fallacies are considered to be uncivil and do not help creating a constructive atmosphere for dialogue to flourish. An ad hominem
attack is an attack on the character of the target who tends to feel
the necessity to defend himself or herself from the accusation of being
hypocritical. Walton has noted that it is so powerful of an argument
that it is employed in many political debates. Since it is associated
with negativity and dirty tricks, it has gained a bad fame, of being
always fallacious.
Author Eithan Orkibi, having studied the Israeli politics prior to elections, described two other forms of ad hominem
attacks that are common during election periods. They both depend on
the collective memory shared by both proponents and the audience. The
first is the precedent ad hominem, according to which the
previous history of someone means that they do not fit for the office.
It goes like this: "My opponent was (allegedly) wrong in the past,
therefore he is wrong now". The second one is a behavioral ad hominem:
"my opponent was not decent in his arguments in the past, so he is not
now either". These kinds of attacks are based on the inability of the
audience to have a clear view of the amount of false statements by both
parts of the debate.
Criticism as a fallacy
Walton has argued that ad hominem
reasoning is not always fallacious, and that in some instances,
questions of personal conduct, character, motives, etc., are legitimate
and relevant to the issue, as when it directly involves hypocrisy, or actions contradicting the subject's words.
The philosopher Charles Taylor has argued that ad hominem
reasoning (discussing facts about the speaker or author relative to the
value of his statements) is essential to understanding certain moral
issues due to the connection between individual persons and morality (or
moral claims), and contrasts this sort of reasoning with the apodictic reasoning (involving facts beyond dispute or clearly established) of philosophical naturalism.
A complementary currency is a currency or medium of exchange that is not necessarily a national currency, but that is thought of as supplementing or complementing national currencies.Complementary currencies are usually not legal tender
and their use is based on agreement between the parties exchanging the
currency. According to Jérôme Blanc of Laboratoire d'Économie de la
Firme et des Institutions, complementary currencies aim to protect,
stimulate or orientate the economy. They may also be used to advance particular social, environmental, or political goals.
When speaking about complementary currencies, a number of overlapping and often interchangeable terms are in use: local or community
currencies are complementary currencies used within a locality or other
form of community (such as business-based or online communities);
regional currencies are similar to local currencies, but are used within
a larger geographical region; and sectoral currencies are complementary currencies used within a single economic sector, such as education or health care. Many private currencies are complementary currencies issued by private businesses or organizations. Other terms include alternative currency, auxiliary currency, and microcurrency. Mutual credit
is a form of alternative currency, and thus any form of lending that
does not go through the banking system can be considered a form of
alternative currency. Barters
are another type of alternative currency. These are actually exchange
systems, which trade only items, without the use of any currency
whatsoever. Finally, LETS is a special form of barter that trades points for items. One point stands for one worker-hour of work, and is thus a time-based currency.
Purposes
Current
complementary currencies have often been designed intentionally to
address specific issues, for example to increase financial stability.
Most complementary currencies have multiple purposes and/or are
intended to address multiple issues. They can be useful for communities
that do not have access to financial capital, and for adjusting peoples'
spending behavior.
The 2006 Annual Report of the Worldwide Database of Complementary
Currency Systems presented a survey of 150 complementary currency
systems in which 94 respondents said that "all reasons" were selected,
among cooperation, micro/small/medium enterprise development, activating
the local market, reducing the need for national currency, and
community development.
Aims may include:
resocialisation and emancipation
lifeboat currencies
to increase financial stability
to reduce carbon emissions, by encouraging localisation of trade and relationships
to encouraging use of under-used resources
to recognise the informal economy
promote local businesses
Advantages
Alternative
currencies increase in activity if the local economy slows down, and
decrease in activity if the local economy goes up.
They are most successful if the currency circulates within the users,
in cycles or loops, as shown in an analysis of the use of Sardex by
1,477 entities in Sardinia in 2013 and 2014.
Disadvantages
According
to professor Nikolaus Läufer's theory, the use of local currencies such
as Freigeld can only increase economic activity temporarily. Lengthy
use of a local currency will ultimately result in a decline in economic
activity and lead to a destabilization of the economy. This is due to
the increased circulation velocity of the money as the amount in
circulation decreases (as currencies as Freigeld reduce in value
rapidly).
Tax
There are some complementary currencies that are regional or global, such as the Community Exchange System, WIR and Friendly Favors, Tibex in the Lazio region in Italy or the proposed global currency terra.
A community currency
is a type of complementary currency that has the explicit aim to
support and build more equal, connected and sustainable societies. A
community currency is designed to be used by a specific group.
Since the advent of Bitcoin on January 3, 2009, cryptocurrency
has increased substantially as an alternative currency. Cryptocurrency
allows for a trustless means of exchange through the use of
decentralized mining, in which computers solve mathematical puzzles
first in order to verify the transaction.
Department of Labor poster notifying employees of rights under the Fair Labor Standards Act
The Fair Labor Standards Act of 193829 U.S.C.§ 203 (FLSA) is a United States labor law that creates the right to a minimum wage, and "time-and-a-half" overtime pay when people work over forty hours a week. It also prohibits employment of minors in "oppressive child labor". It applies to employees engaged in interstate commerce or employed by an enterprise engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce, unless the employer can claim an exemption from coverage. The Act was enacted by the 75th Congress and signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1938.
Practical application
The
Fair Labor Standards Act applies to "employees who are engaged in
interstate commerce or in the production of goods for commerce, or who
are employed by an enterprise engaged in commerce or in the production
of goods for commerce"
unless the employer can claim an exemption from coverage. Generally, an
employer with at least $500,000 of business or gross sales in a year
satisfies the commerce requirements of the FLSA,
and therefore that employer's workers are subject to the Fair Labor
Standards Act's protections if no other exemption applies. Several
exemptions exist that relieve an employer from having to meet the
statutory minimum wage, overtime, and record-keeping requirements. The
largest exceptions apply to the so-called "white collar"
exemptions that are applicable to professional, administrative and
executive employees, though exemptions also exist for jobs such as movie theater workers.
Exemptions are narrowly construed, as an employer must prove that the
employees fit "plainly and unmistakably" within the exemption's terms.
The Fair Labor Standards Act applies to "any individual employed
by an employer" but not to independent contractors or volunteers because
they are not considered "employees" under the FLSA.
Still, an employer cannot simply exempt workers from the Fair Labor
Standards Act by calling them independent contractors, and many
employers have illegally and incorrectly classified their workers as
independent contractors. Some employers similarly mislabel employees as
volunteers. Courts look at the "economic reality" of the relationship
between the putative employer and the worker to determine whether the
worker is an independent contractor. Courts use a similar test to
determine whether a worker was concurrently employed by more than one
person or entity; commonly referred to as "joint employers". For
example, a farm worker may be considered jointly employed by a labor
contractor (who is in charge of recruitment, transportation, payroll,
and keeping track of hours) and a grower (who generally monitors the
quality of the work performed, determines where to place workers,
controls the volume of work available, has quality control requirements,
and has the power to fire, discipline, or provide work instructions to
workers).
In many instances, employers do not pay overtime properly for non-exempt jobs,
such as not paying an employee for travel time between job sites,
activities before or after their shifts, and preparation central to work
activities.
If an employee is entitled to overtime, the employer must pay them one
and a half times their "regular rate of pay" for all hours they work
over 40 in the same work week.
Employees employed in a ministerial role by a religiously affiliated employer are not entitled to overtime under the act.
During World War II, the Army-Navy "E" Award for excellence in war production required maintaining the fair labor standards established under the Act.
Exemptions
The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)
in the United States sets minimum wage, overtime pay, recordkeeping,
and child labor standards, but certain employees may be exempt. The
exemptions include executive, administrative, professional, computer
employees, and outside sales exemptions.
Executives must have management duties, while administrative employees
perform non-manual work related to business operations. Professional
exemptions apply to learned or creative professionals, computer employee
exemptions to computer-related roles, and outside sales exemptions to
employees primarily engaged in off-site sales. Exemption criteria
involve salary thresholds and meeting specific duties. Consulting legal counsel or the U.S. Department of Labor is advisable for comprehensive guidance.
Tipping
Under
the Fair Labor Standards Act, an employer has to pay each employee the
minimum wage, unless the employee is "engaged in an occupation in which
the employee customarily and regularly receives more than $30 a month in
tips". If the employee's wage does not equal minimum wage, including
tips, the employer must make up the difference. However, the employee must be allowed to keep all tips, either individually or through a tip pool. A tip pool may also contain only "employees who customarily and regularly receive tips".
"The phrase 'customarily and regularly' signifies a frequency which
must be greater than occasional, but which may be less than constant."
While the nomenclature of a job title is not dispositive, the job
of "busboy" is explicitly validated for tip-pool inclusion by an
authoritative source.
"A busboy performs an integral part of customer service without much
direct interaction, but he does so in a manner visible to customers. ...
Thus, for a service bartender to be validly included in a tip pool, he
must meet this minimal threshold in a manner sufficient to incentivize
customers to 'customarily and regularly' tip in recognition" of his
services (though he need not receive the tips directly).
The Fair Labor Standards Act was originally drafted in 1932 by SenatorHugo Black, whose proposal to require employers to adopt a thirty-hour workweek met fierce resistance.
In 1938, a revised version of Black's proposal was passed. The
revised version was instrumentally supported by a number of notable
people, including Frances Perkins, Clara Mortenson Beyer from the Bureau of Labor Standards within the United States Department of Labor, as well as Congresswoman Mary T. Norton. The revised proposal adopted an eight-hour day and a forty-hour workweek and allowed workers to earn wage for an extra four hours of overtime as well.
According to the act, workers must be paid minimum wage and overtime
pay must be one-and-a-half times regular pay. Children under eighteen
cannot do certain dangerous jobs, and children under sixteen cannot work
in manufacturing or mining or during school hours.
Though it did not cover executives, seasonal employees, and some other
groups, the Fair Labor Standards Act gave raises to 700,000 workers, and
US President Franklin Roosevelt called it the most important piece of New Deal legislation since the Social Security Act of 1935.
1947 Portal-to-Portal Act
In 1946, the US Supreme Court ruled in Anderson v. Mt. Clemens Pottery Co.
that preliminary work activities controlled by the employer and
performed entirely for the employer's benefit are properly included as
working time under the FLSA.
In response, Congress passed the 1947 Portal-to-Portal Act, which narrowed the Supreme Court's decision.
It specified exactly what type of time was considered compensable work
time. In general, as long as an employee is engaging in activities that
benefit the employer, regardless of when they are performed, the
employer has an obligation to pay the employee for that time. The act
also specified that travel to and from the workplace was a normal
incident of employment and should not be considered paid working time.
The act stated that employees had two years of performing the work to file a lawsuit for uncompensated time. Upon signing the act, President Harry Truman urged Congress to increase the minimum wage from 40 cents per hour to 65 cents per hour.
1949 Fair Labor Standards Amendment
The
full effect of the FLSA of 1938 was postponed by the wartime inflation
of the 1940s, which increased (nominal) wages to above the level
specified in the Act. On October 26, 1949, President Truman signed the
Fair Labor Standards Amendment Act of 1949 (ch. 736, Pub. L.81–393, 63 Stat.910, 29 U.S.C.§ 201).
The act defined an employee's "regular rate" of pay for purposes of computation of overtime pay.
The act specified that employees were covered by the Fair Labor
Standards Act if they are "directly essential" to production of goods
for interstate commerce. The act increased the minimum wage from 40 cents to 75 cents per hour, effective January 24, 1950. The act prohibited oppressive child labor in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce. The act also included a few new exemptions for special worker classes.
1955 amendment
In 1955, PresidentEisenhower
urged Congress to amend the FLSA in order to increase the number of
employees who are covered by minimum wage laws and to increase the
minimum wage itself to 90 cents per hour. At the time, retail workers and services workers were not covered by minimum wage laws.
Congress passed an amendment to the FLSA, and President Eisenhower signed it on August 12, 1955. The amendment increased the minimum wage from 75¢ per hour to $1 per hour, effective March 1, 1956.
Despite a push by some members of Congress, retail workers, service
workers, agricultural workers, and construction workers were still not
required to be paid at least the minimum wage.
1961 amendment
The
1961 amendment added another method of determining a type of coverage
called enterprise coverage. Enterprise coverage applies only when the
business is involved in interstate commerce
and its gross annual business volume is a minimum of $500,000. All
employees working for "enterprises" are then covered by the FLSA if the
individual firms of the "enterprise have a revenue greater than $500,000
per year".
Under the original 1938 Act, a worker whose work is in the channels of
interstate commerce is covered as an individual. "Interstate commerce"
is interpreted so broadly that most work is included, such as ordering,
loading, or using supplies from out of state, accepting payments from
customers based on credit cards issued by out-of-state banks, and so on.
The 1961 amendment also specified that coverage is automatic for
schools, hospitals, nursing homes, or other residential care facilities.
Coverage is also automatic for all governmental entities at whatever
level of government, no matter the size. Coverage does not apply to
certain entities not organized for business, such as churches and
charitable institutions. The minimum wage level was again increased to
$1.25 per hour. What could be considered a wage was specifically
defined, and entitlement to sue for back wages was granted.
1963 Equal Pay Act
The Equal Pay Act of 1963
was enacted to amend the FLSA and make it illegal to pay some workers
lower wages than others strictly on the basis on their sex. It is often summed up with the phrase "equal pay for equal work".
The Equal Pay Act allows unequal pay for equal work only when the
employer sets wages pursuant to a seniority system, a merit system, a
system that measures earnings by quantity or quality of production, or
other factors outside of sex. For the first nine years of the EPA, the
requirement of equal pay for equal work did not extend to persons
employed in an executive, administrative or professional capacity, or as
an outside salesperson. Therefore, the EPA exempted white-collar women
from the protection of equal pay for equal work. In 1972, Congress
enacted the Education Amendments of 1972,
which amended the FLSA to expand the coverage of the EPA to these
employees, by excluding the EPA from the professional workers exemption
of the FLSA.
1966 amendment
The
1966 amendment expanded coverage to some farm workers and increased the
minimum wage to $1.60 per hour in stages. The 1966 Fair Labor Standards
Act amendment also gave federal employees coverage for the first time.
A 2021 study on the effects of the 1966 extension, which raised
the minimum wage in several economic sectors, found that the minimum
wages increases led to a sharp increase in earnings without any adverse
aggregate effects on employment. The legislation also substantially
reduced the racial wage gap.
1967 Age Discrimination in Employment Act
The Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967
(ADEA) prohibited employment discrimination against persons forty years
of age or older. Some older workers were being denied health benefits
based on their age and denied training opportunities prior to the
passage of the ADEA. The act applies only to businesses employing more
than twenty workers.
1974 Fair Labor Standards Amendments
The
1974 amendment expanded coverage to include other state and local
government employees that were not previously covered. Domestic workers
also became covered and the minimum wage was increased to $2.30 per hour
in stages.
1977 Fair Labor Standards Amendments
The 1977 amendment increased the minimum wage in yearly increments through 1981 to $3.35 an hour.
Changes were made involving tipped employees and the tip credit.
Partial overtime exemption was repealed in stages for certain hotel,
motel, and restaurant employees.
1983 Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act
The Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act
(MSPA), enacted in 1983, was designed to provide migrant and seasonal
farm workers with protections concerning pay, working conditions, and
work-related conditions to require farm labor contractors to register
with the US Department of Labor and assure necessary protections for
farm workers, agricultural associations, and agricultural employers.
1985 Fair Labor Standards Amendments
An
amendment permitted state and local government employers to compensate
their employees' overtime hours with paid time away from work in lieu of
overtime pay.
Paid time off must be given at the rate of one and one-half hours for
each hour of employment for which overtime compensation would be
required by the Fair Labor Standards Act. Other employers may not compensate employees with paid time off in lieu of overtime pay.
The amendment exempted state and local governments from paying
overtime for special detail work performed by fire-protection,
law-enforcement, and prison-security employees.
The amendment exempted state and local governments from paying overtime
to employees working in a substantially different capacity from the
employee's regular full-time employment on a sporadic basis.
The amendment stated that individuals who volunteer to perform
services for a state or local government agency are not covered by the
Fair Labor Standards Act if the individual receives no compensation or
nominal compensation.
The amendment stated that state and local legislative employees,
other than legislative library employees, are not covered by the Fair
Labor Standards Act.
1986 Amendment
In 1986, the Fair Labor Standards Act was amended to allow the United States Secretary of Labor
to provide special certificates to allow an employer to pay less than
the minimum wage to individuals whose earning or productive capacity is
impaired by age, physical or mental deficiency, or injury.
These employees must still be paid wages that are related to the
individual's productivity and commensurate with those paid to similarly
located and employed nonhandicapped workers.
However, paying workers with disabilities less than the minimum wage
was outlawed in New Hampshire in 2015, in Maryland in 2016, and in
Alaska in 2018.
Section 14(c)
Section
14(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act states that with the approval of
the Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division (WHD) certain employers
can pay employees with disabilities below the minimum wage.
In order for the subminimum wage to apply, the disability of the worker
must directly affect their productivity in their given position. The
employer must show that the work of an employee with a disability is
less productive than the standard set for employees without
disabilities. If approved by the WHD, the rate of pay for the worker
with a disability can correlate to their productivity in comparison to
workers without disabilities.
Every sixth months at a minimum, employers certified under Section
14(c) must review the special minimum wage of their hourly employees.
Annually, Section 14(c) employers must also adjust the rate of pay
workers receiving special minimum wages to remain comparable to that of
employees without disabilities. These requirements of subminimum wage review by the employers were added to Section 14(c) through a 1986 amendment.
The intention of the section is to enable higher employment for people
with disabilities. The concern with enforcing minimum wage was that
there would be a decrease in the job opportunities for workers with
disabilities, so Section 14(c) is to be utilized only as needed to
offset any opportunity loss.
The majority of Section 14(c) workers are employed through work
centers, but these individuals also work through businesses, schools,
and hospitals. As of 2001, 424,000 employees with disabilities were receiving the subminimum wages through 5,600 employers under Section 14(c).
More than 50% of workers with disabilities were paid $2.50 per hour or
less by their employers due to reduced productivity caused by a
disability. There are several proposed bills that would repeal and eventually phase out Section 14(c) certifications such as H.R. 873 or H.R. 582 (Raise the Wage Act) which was passed by the House of Representatives in July 2019, but did not pass. Both political parties have expressed support to repealing this program.
1986 Department of Defense Authorization Act
The
Department of Defense Authorization Act of 1986 repealed the eight-hour
daily overtime requirements on all federal contracts.
1989 Fair Labor Standards Amendments
In 1989, SenatorEdward M. Kennedy introduced a bill to increase the minimum wage from $3.35 per hour to $4.55 per hour in stages. Secretary of LaborElizabeth Dole
supported increasing the minimum wage to $4.25 per hour along with
allowing a minimum wage of $3.35 an hour for new employees' first ninety
days of employment for an employer. Secretary Dole said that PresidentGeorge H. W. Bush would veto any bill increasing the minimum wage to more than $4.25 per hour.
By a vote of 248 to 171, the House of Representatives approved a bill to increase the minimum wage to $4.55 per hour in stages over a two-year period.
The bill also allowed employers to pay new employees at least 85
percent of the minimum wage during the first sixty days of employment of
a newly hired employee with no previous employment. The bill also increased the exemption from minimum wage law for small businesses from $362,500 to $500,000 of annual sales. By a vote of 61 to 39, the Senate approved a bill to increase the minimum wage to $4.55 per hour. President Bush vetoed the bill, calling the increase "excessive". The House of Representatives unsuccessfully tried to override the veto, voting 247 to 178 to override, 37 votes short.
By a vote of 382 to 37, the House of Representatives approved a
revised bill that would increase the minimum wage to $3.80 per hour as
of April 1990, and $4.25 per hour as of April 1, 1991. The bill would allow a lower minimum wage for employees who are less than twenty years old. The bill eliminated different minimum wages for retail and non-retail businesses. The next week, the Senate approved the bill by a vote of 89 to 8. Senators Orrin Hatch, Steve Symms, and Phil Gramm were unsuccessful at passing minimum-wage exemptions for small businesses and farmers using migrant or seasonal workers. President Bush signed the bill two weeks later.
1996 Small Business Job Protection Act
The 1996 amendment increased the minimum wage to $5.15 an hour. However, the Small Business Job Protection Act of 1996 (PL 104-188), which provided the minimum-wage increase, also detached tipped employees from future minimum-wage increases.
2004 rule change
On
August 23, 2004, controversial changes to exemptions from the FLSA's
minimum wage and overtime requirements went into effect, making
substantial modifications to the definition of an "exempt" employee.
Low-level working supervisors throughout American industries were
reclassified as "executives" and lost overtime rights. The changes were
sought by business interests, which claimed that the laws needed
clarification and that few workers would be affected. The Bush
administration called the new regulations "FairPay". However, other
organizations, such as the AFL–CIO,
claimed the changes would make millions of additional workers
ineligible to obtain relief under the FLSA for overtime pay. Attempts in
Congress to overturn the new regulations were unsuccessful.
Conversely, some low-level employees (particularly
administrative-support staff) that had previously been classified as
exempt were now reclassified as non-exempt. Although such employees work
in positions bearing titles previously used to determine exempt status
(such as "executive assistant"), the 2004 amendment to the FLSA now
requires that an exemption must be predicated upon actual job function
and not job title. Employees with job titles that previously allowed
exemption but whose job descriptions did not include managerial
functions were now reclassified from exempt to non-exempt.
2007 Fair Minimum Wage Act
On May 25, 2007, President Bush signed into law a supplemental appropriation bill (H.R. 2206), which contains the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007.
This provision amended the FLSA to provide for the increase of the
federal minimum wage by an incremental plan, culminating in a minimum
wage of $7.25 per hour by July 24, 2009. Further, American territories
including American Samoa and Puerto Rico were to adopt the mainland
minimum wage in a series of incremental increases.
2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act
Section 4207 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act
(H.R. 3590) amends Section 7 to add a "break time for nursing mothers"
provision. It specifies that employers shall provide break time for nursing mothers
to express milk and that "a place, other than a bathroom, that is
shielded from view and free from intrusion from coworkers and the
public" should be available for employees to express milk.
2019 rule change
On
September 27, 2019, the Department of Labor released a rule setting the
salary level or amount test at $684 per week (equivalent to $35,568 per
year) in order for an employee to qualify as an FLSA-exempt executive
employee, administrative employee, and professional employee.In order to qualify as a highly compensated employee, the total annual compensation test was set at $107,432.When the Department of Labor had determined the total annual
compensation, it based it on the eightieth percentile of weekly earnings
for full-time salaried employees in the United States.
Proposed amendments
2009/2013 Paid Vacation Act
The Paid Vacation Act of 2009, introduced by Representative Alan Grayson on May 21, 2009,
proposed that all employers with 100 or more employees provide a paid
vacation to all eligible personnel. This earned period of time was
initially defined as seven working days and increased to fourteen
working days three years after the bill passed. Additionally, employers
with 50 or more personnel would have been required to provide one
working week of paid vacation. This vacation period was to be used
within a twelve-month period. In addition to these stipulations, the
bill authorized a public awareness campaign to be overseen by the
Secretary of Labor and required a study be conducted on the effect of
the paid vacation time in the workplace.
On May 21, 2009 the bill was referred to the House Committee on
Education and Labor and two months later referred to the Subcommittee on
Workforce Protections. The bill remained in the subcommittee with no
report or recommendation issued. At the time of proposal, H.R. 2563 had two original cosponsors; two additional cosponsors added July 2009.
In 2013, Representative Grayson reintroduced the Paid Vacation Act as H.R. 2096. Apart from the omission of the 2009 proposal’s findings section, H.R. 2096 was virtually identical to H.R. 2563.
Representative Grayson was the sole original sponsor for the bill,
which was immediately referred to the House Committee on Education and
Labor. Like the original proposition, the bill was referred to the House
Subcommittee on Workforce Protections in July 2013.
There have been no reports issued by either the committee or
subcommittee. Both bills were met with opposition which cited concerns
of the loss of jobs or benefits.
2014 Minimum Wage Fairness Act
In April 2014, the United States Senate debated the Minimum Wage Fairness Act (S. 1737; 113th Congress).
The bill would have amended the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA)
to increase the federal minimum wage for employees to $10.10 per hour
over the course of a two-year period. The bill was strongly supported by President Barack Obama and many of the Democratic senators, but strongly opposed by Republicans in the Senate and House.
2015 Healthy Families Act
In January 2015, President Barack Obama asked Congress to pass the Healthy Families Act under which employers would be allowed to give employees one hour of paid sick leave
for every 30 hours they work up. This applies for up to seven days or
56 hours of paid sick leave annually instead of paying overtime to the
employees. The bill, as proposed, would have applied to employers with
15 or more employees for employees as defined in the Fair Labor
Standards Act.
2015 proposed rulemaking
On July 6, 2015, the Department of Labor published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking,
based on a 2014 presidential memorandum signed by PresidentBarack Obama
directing the Department of Labor to update the regulations defining
which white-collar workers are protected by the FLSA's minimum wage and
overtime standards. On May 18, 2016, the final version of the rule was published,
which would require that employees earning a salary of less than $913
per week would be paid overtime, effective December 1, 2016, and the threshold would be automatically adjusted every three years, beginning January 1, 2020.
On November 23, 2016, a United States District judge imposed an injunction,
temporarily stopping the rule's enforcement nationwide, in order to
have time to determine whether the Department of Labor had the authority
to issue the regulation. When the Trump administration
took power in January 2017 they opted not to defend the rule in court,
leading to a summary judgement on August 31 that the rule was invalid
because the threshold was so high that it made the duties test
irrelevant, and because the automatic adjustments provided by the rule
were unlawful.
2016 Wage Theft Prevention and Wage Recovery Act
In
September 2016, Democratic members of the United States House and
Senate introduced the Wage Theft Prevention and Wage Recovery Act. It
would have increased employer liability under FLSA suits to the amount
promised by the employer, rather than the minimum wage, prohibit
pre-dispute arbitration agreements from precluding a claim of wage theft
from court, make it possible to bring FLSA class action suits without
the individual consent of workers who had their wages stolen, create
automatic financial penalties for violations and create a discretionary
ability for the Department of Labor to refer the violators to the
Department of Justice for prosecution. The bill did not make it out of
committee in either the House or the Senate.
Asymmetric warfare (or asymmetric engagement) is a type of war between belligerents
whose relative military power, strategy, or tactics differ
significantly. This type of warfare often, but not necessarily, involves
insurgents or resistance movementmilitias who may have the status of unlawful combatants against a standing army.
Asymmetrical warfare can also describe a conflict in which
belligerents' resources are uneven, and consequently, they both may
attempt to exploit each other's relative weaknesses. Such struggles
often involve unconventional warfare, with the weaker side attempting to use strategy to offset deficiencies in the quantity or quality of their forces and equipment. Such strategies may not necessarily be militarized. This is in contrast to symmetrical warfare, where two powers have comparable military power, resources, and rely on similar tactics.
The popularity of the term dates from Andrew J. R. Mack's 1975 article "Why Big Nations Lose Small Wars" in World Politics,
in which "asymmetric" referred simply to a significant disparity in
power between opposing actors in a conflict. "Power," in this sense, is
broadly understood to mean material power, such as a large army,
sophisticated weapons, an advanced economy, and so on. Mack's analysis
was largely ignored in its day, but the end of the Cold War
sparked renewed interest among academics. By the late 1990s, a new
research building off Mack's works was beginning to mature; after 2004,
the U.S. military began once again to prioritize responding to challenges presented by asymmetric warfare.
Since 2004, the discussion of asymmetric warfare has been
complicated by the tendency of academic and military officials to use
the term in different ways, as well as by its close association with guerrilla warfare, insurgency, terrorism, counterinsurgency, and counterterrorism.
Military authors tend to use the term "asymmetric" to refer to the
indirect nature of the strategies many weak actors adopt or to the
adversary's nature itself (e.g., "asymmetric adversaries can be expected
to …") rather than to the relative strength of adversarial forces.
Academic authors tend to focus on explaining two puzzles in
asymmetric conflict. First, if "power" determines victory, there must be
reasons why weaker actors decide to fight more powerful actors. Key
explanations include:
Weaker actors may have secret weapons.
Weaker actors may have powerful allies.
Stronger actors are unable to make threats credible.
The demands of a stronger actor are extreme.
The weaker actor must consider its regional rivals when responding to threats from powerful actors.
Second, if "power," as generally understood, leads to victory in war,
then there must be an explanation for why the "weak" can defeat the
"strong." Key explanations include:
Strategic interaction.
Willingness of the weak to suffer more or bear higher costs.
External support of weak actors.
Reluctance to escalating violence on the part of strong actors.
Internal group dynamics.
Inflated strong actor war aims.
Evolution of asymmetric rivals' attitudes towards time.
Asymmetric conflicts include interstate and civil wars,
and over the past two hundred years, have generally been won by strong
actors. Since 1950, however, weak actors have won the majority of
asymmetric conflicts.
Strategic basis
In most conventional warfare,
the belligerents deploy forces of a similar type, and the outcome can
be predicted by the quantity or quality of the opposing forces, for
example, better command and control
of theirs (c2). There are times when this is the case, and conventional
forces are not easily compared, making it difficult for opposing sides
to engage. An example of this is the standoff between the continental
land forces of the French Army and the maritime forces of the United Kingdom's Royal Navy during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. In the words of Admiral Jervis during the campaigns of 1801, "I do not say, my Lords, that the French will not come. I say only they will not come by sea", and a confrontation that Napoleon Bonaparte described as that between the elephant and the whale.
The tactical success of asymmetric warfare is dependent on at least some of the following assumptions:
One side can have a technological advantage that outweighs the numerical advantage of the enemy; the English longbow at the Battle of Crécy is an example.
Technological superiority usually is cancelled by the more
vulnerable infrastructure, which can be targeted with devastating
results. Destruction of multiple electric lines, roads, or water supply
systems in highly populated areas could devastate the economy and
morale. In contrast, the weaker side may not have these structures at
all.
Training, tactics, and technology can prove decisive and allow a
smaller force to overcome a much larger one. For example, for several
centuries, the Greek hoplite's (heavy infantry) use of phalanx made them far superior to their enemies. The Battle of Thermopylae, which also involved good use of terrain, is a well-known example.
If the inferior power is in a position of self-defense, i.e., under attack or occupation, it may be possible to use unconventional tactics, such as hit-and-run and selective battles in which the superior power is weaker, as an effective means of harassment without violating the laws of war. Perhaps the classic historical examples of this doctrine may be found in the American Revolutionary War, movements in World War II, such as the French Resistance and Soviet and Yugoslavpartisans.
Against democratic aggressor nations, this strategy can be used to play
on the electorate's patience with the conflict (as in the Vietnam War, and others since), provoking protests, and consequent disputes among elected legislators.
However, if the weaker power is in an aggressive position or turns to tactics prohibited by the laws of war (jus in bello), its success depends on the superior power's refraining from like tactics. For example, the law of land warfare prohibits the use of a flag of truce or marked medical vehicles as cover for an attack or ambush.
Still, an asymmetric combatant using this prohibited tactic to its
advantage depends on the superior power's obedience to the corresponding
law. Similarly, warfare laws prohibit combatants from using civilian settlements, populations or facilities as military bases,
but when an inferior force uses this tactic, it depends on the premise
that the superior one will respect the law that the other is violating,
and will not attack that civilian target, or if they do the propaganda
advantage will outweigh the material loss.
Terrorism
There are two opposing viewpoints on the relationship between asymmetric warfare and terrorism. In the modern context, asymmetric warfare is increasingly considered a component of fourth generation warfare. When practiced outside the laws of war, it is often defined as terrorism, though rarely by its practitioners or their supporters. The other view is that asymmetric warfare does not coincide with terrorism.
Use of terrain
Terrain that limits mobility, such as forests and mountains, can be used as a force multiplier by the smaller force and as a force inhibitor against the larger one, especially one operating far from its logistical base. Such terrain is called difficult terrain. Urban
areas, though generally having good transport access, provide
innumerable ready-made defensible positions with simple escape routes
and can also become rough terrain if prolonged combat fills the streets
with rubble.
The contour of the land is an aid
to the army, sizing up opponents to determine victory and assessing
dangers and distance. "Those who do battle without knowing these will
lose."
An early example of terrain advantage is the Battle of Thermopylae,
480 BC, where the narrow terrain of a defile was used to funnel the
Persian forces, who were numerically superior, to a point where they
could not use their size as an advantage.
In the 12th century, irregulars known as the Assassins were successful in the Nizari Ismaili state. The "state" consisted of fortresses (such as the Alamut Castle)
built on strategic mountaintops and highlands with difficult access,
surrounded by hostile lands. The Assassins developed tactics to
eliminate high-value targets, threatening their security, including the Crusaders.
Yugoslav Partisans, starting as small detachments around mountain villages in 1941, fought the German and other Axis
occupation forces, successfully taking advantage of the rough terrain
to survive despite their small numbers. Over the next four years, they
slowly forced their enemies back, recovering population centers and
resources, eventually growing into the regular Yugoslav Army.
Role of civilians
Civilians
can play a vital role in determining the outcome of an asymmetric war.
In such conflicts, when it is easy for insurgents to assimilate into the
population quickly after an attack, tips on the timing or location of
insurgent activity can severely undermine the resistance. An
information-central framework,
in which civilians are seen primarily as sources of strategic
information rather than resources, provides a paradigm to understand
better the dynamics of such conflicts where civilian information-sharing
is vital. The framework assumes that:
The consequential action of non-combatants (civilians) is information sharing rather than supplying resources, recruits, or shelter to combatants.
Information can be shared anonymously without endangering the civilian who relays it.
Given the additional assumption that the larger or dominant force is
the government, the framework suggests the following implications:
Civilians receive services from government and rebel forces as an incentive to share valuable information.
Rebel violence can be reduced if the government provides services.
Provision of security and services are complementary in reducing violence.
Civilian casualties reduce civilian support to the perpetrating group.
Provision of information is strongly correlated with the level of anonymity that can be ensured.
A survey of the empirical literature on conflict,
does not provide conclusive evidence on the claims. But the framework
gives a starting point to explore the role of civilian information
sharing in asymmetric warfare.
War by proxy
Where
asymmetric warfare is carried out (generally covertly) by allegedly
non-governmental actors who are connected to or sympathetic to a
particular nation's (the "state actor's") interest, it may be deemed war by proxy. This is typically done to give the state actor deniability.
The deniability can be crucial to keep the state actor from being
tainted by the actions, to allow the state actor to negotiate in
apparent good faith by claiming they are not responsible for the actions
of parties who are merely sympathizers, or to avoid being accused of belligerent actions or war crimes. If proof emerges of the true extent of the state actor's involvement, this strategy can backfire; for example, see Iran-contra and Philip Agee.
Examples
American Revolutionary War
From its initiation, the American Revolutionary War was, necessarily, a showcase for asymmetric techniques. In the 1920s, Harold Murdock of Boston attempted to solve the puzzle of the first shots fired on Lexington Green
and came to the suspicion that the few score militiamen who gathered
before sunrise to await the arrival of hundreds of well-prepared British
soldiers were sent to provoke an incident which could be used for
Patriot propaganda purposes. The return of the British force to Boston following the search operations at Concord was subject to constant skirmishing
by Patriot forces gathered from communities all along the route, making
maximum use of the terrain (particularly, trees and stone field walls)
to overcome the limitations of their weapons – muskets
with an effective range of only about 50–70 meters. Throughout the war,
skirmishing tactics against British troops on the move continued to be a
key factor in the Patriots' success; particularly in the Western theater of the American Revolutionary War.
Another feature of the long march from Concord was the urban
warfare technique of using buildings along the route as additional cover
for snipers. When revolutionary forces forced their way into Norfolk, Virginia
and used waterfront buildings as cover for shots at British vessels out
in the river, the response of destruction of those buildings was
ingeniously used to the advantage of the rebels, who encouraged the
spread of fire throughout the largely Loyalist
town and spread propaganda blaming it on the British. Shortly
afterwards, they destroyed the remaining houses because they might
provide cover for British soldiers.
The rebels also adopted a form of asymmetric sea warfare by using small, fast vessels to avoid the Royal Navy and capturing or sinking large numbers of merchant ships; however the Crown responded by issuing letters of marque permitting private armed vessels to undertake similar attacks on Patriot shipping. John Paul Jones became notorious in Britain for his expedition from France in the little sloop of war Ranger in April 1778, during which, in addition to his attacks on merchant shipping, he made two landings on British soil. The effect of these raids, particularly when coupled with his capture of the Royal Navy's HMS Drake
– the first such success in British waters, but not Jones' last – was
to force the British government to increase resources for coastal
defense, and to create a climate of fear among the British public which
was subsequently fed by press reports of his preparations for the 1779 Bonhomme Richard mission.
From 1776, the conflict turned increasingly into a proxy war on behalf of France, following a strategy proposed in the 1760s but initially resisted by the idealistic young King Louis XVI,
who came to the throne at the age of 19 a few months before Lexington.
France ultimately drove Great Britain to the brink of defeat by entering the war(s) directly on several fronts throughout the world.
American Civil War
The American Civil War saw the rise of asymmetric warfare in the Border States, and in particular on the US Western Territorial Border after the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 opened the territories to vote on the expansion of slavery beyond the Missouri Compromise
lines. Political implications of this broken 1820's compromise were
nothing less than the potential expansion of slavery all across the
North American continent, including the northern reaches of the annexed Mexican territories
to California and Oregon. So the stakes were high, and it caused a
flood of immigration to the border: some to grab land and expand slavery
west, others to grab land and vote down the expansion of slavery. The
pro-slavery land grabbers began asymmetric, violent attacks against the
more pacifist abolitionists who had settled Lawrence and other territorial towns to suppress slavery. John Brown, the abolitionist, travelled to Osawatomie in the Kansas Territory
expressly to foment retaliatory attacks back against the pro-slavery
guerrillas who, by 1858, had twice ransacked both Lawrence and
Osawatomie (where one of Brown's sons was shot dead).
The abolitionists would not return the attacks and Brown
theorized that a violent spark set off on "the Border" would be a way to
finally ignite his long hoped-for slave rebellion.
Brown had broad-sworded slave owners at Potawatomi Creek, so the bloody
civilian violence was initially symmetrical; however, once the American
Civil War ignited in 1861, and when the state of Missouri voted
overwhelmingly not to secede from the Union, the pro-slavers on the
MO-KS border were driven either south to Arkansas and Texas, or
underground—where they became guerrilla fighters and "Bushwhackers"
living in the bushy ravines throughout northwest Missouri across the
(now) state line from Kansas. The bloody "Border War" lasted all during
the Civil War (and long after with guerrilla partisans like the James
brothers cynically robbing and murdering, aided and abetted by lingering
lost causers).
Tragically the Western Border War was an asymmetric war: pro-slavery
guerrillas and paramilitary partisans on the pro-Confederate side
attacked pro-Union townspeople and commissioned Union military units,
with the Union army trying to keep both in check: blocking Kansans and
pro-Union Missourians from organizing militarily against the marauding
Bushwhackers.
The worst act of domestic terror in U.S. history came in August
1863 when paramilitary guerrillas amassed 350 strong and rode all night
50 miles across eastern Kansas to the abolitionist stronghold of
Lawrence (a political target) and destroyed the town, gunning down 150
civilians. The Confederate officer whose company had joined Quantrill's Raiders
that day witnessed the civilian slaughter and forbade his soldiers from
participating in the carnage. The commissioned officer refused to
participate in Quantrill's asymmetric warfare on civilians.
Philippine–American War
The Philippine–American War (1899–1902) was an armed conflict between the United States and Filipino revolutionaries. Estimates of the Filipino forces vary between 100,000 and 1,000,000, with tens of thousands of auxiliaries. Lack of weapons and ammunition was a significant impediment to the Filipinos, so most of the forces were only armed with bolo knives, bows and arrows, spears and other primitive weapons that, in practice, proved vastly inferior to U.S. firepower.
The goal, or end-state, sought by the First Philippine Republic was a sovereign, independent, socially stable Philippines led by the ilustrado (intellectual) oligarchy. Local chieftains, landowners, and businessmen were the principales who controlled local politics. The war was strongest when illustrados, principales, and peasants were unified in opposition to annexation. The peasants, who provided the bulk of guerrilla forces, had interests different from their illustrado leaders and the principales of their villages. Coupled with the ethnic and geographic fragmentation, unity was a daunting task. The challenge for Aguinaldo and his generals was to sustain unified Filipino public opposition; this was the revolutionaries' strategic centre of gravity. The Filipino operational center of gravity was the ability to sustain its force of 100,000 irregulars in the field. The Filipino General Francisco Macabulos
described the Filipinos' war aim as "not to vanquish the U.S. Army but
to inflict on them constant losses." They initially sought to use
conventional tactics and an increasing toll of U.S. casualties to
contribute to McKinley's defeat in the 1900 presidential election. Their hope was that as president the avowedly anti-imperialist future Secretary of stateWilliam Jennings Bryan would withdraw from the Philippines. They pursued this short-term goal with guerrilla tactics better suited to a protracted struggle. While targeting McKinley
motivated the revolutionaries in the short term, his victory
demoralized them and convinced many undecided Filipinos that the United
States would not depart precipitously.
For most of 1899, the revolutionary leadership had viewed guerrilla
warfare strategically only as a tactical option of final recourse, not
as a means of operation which better suited their disadvantaged
situation. On 13 November 1899, Emilio Aguinaldo
decreed that guerrilla war would henceforth be the strategy. This made
the American occupation of the Philippine archipelago more difficult
over the next few years. In fact, during just the first four months of
the guerrilla war, the Americans had nearly 500 casualties. The
Philippine Revolutionary Army began staging bloody ambushes and raids,
such as the guerrilla victories at Paye, Catubig, Makahambus, Pulang Lupa, Balangiga and Mabitac.
At first, it seemed like the Filipinos would fight the Americans to a
stalemate and force them to withdraw. President McKinley even considered
this at the beginning of the phase. The shift to guerrilla warfare
drove the U.S. Army to adopt counterinsurgency tactics. Civilians were
given identification and forced into concentration camps with a publicly
announced deadline, after which all persons found outside camps without
identification would be shot on sight. Thousands of civilians died in
these camps due to poor conditions.
20th century
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 guerrilla war instead of capitulating. 20,000-30,000
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 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.
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.
Anglo-Irish War (Irish War of Independence) fought between the Irish Republican Army and the Black and Tans/Auxiliaries. Though Lloyd George (Prime Minister
at the time) attempted to persuade other nations that it was not a war
by refusing to use the army and using the Black and Tans instead, the
conflict was conducted as an asymmetric guerrilla war and was registered
as a war with the League of Nations by the Irish Free State.
World War II
Philippine resistance against Japan – During the Japanese occupation
in World War II, there was an extensive Philippine resistance movement,
which opposed the Japanese with an active underground and guerrilla
activity that increased over the years.
Winter War – Finland was invaded by the much larger mechanized military units of the Soviet Union.
Although the Soviets captured 8% of Finland, they suffered enormous
casualties versus much lower losses for the Finns. Soviet vehicles were
confined to narrow forest roads by terrain and snow, while the Finns
used ski tactics around them unseen through the trees. They cut the advancing Soviet column into what they called motti
(a cubic metre of firewood) and then destroyed the cut-off sections one
by one. Many Soviets were shot, had their throats cut from behind, or
froze to death due to inadequate clothing and lack of camouflage and
shelter. The Finns also devised a petrol bomb they called the Molotov cocktail to destroy Soviet tanks.
In Southeast Asia, specifically Vietnam, the Viet Minh, NLF and other insurgencies engaged in asymmetrical guerrilla warfare with France.
The war between the Mujahideen and the Soviet Armed Forces during the Soviet–Afghan War of 1979 to 1989, though claimed as a source of the term "asymmetric warfare,"
occurred years after Mack wrote of "asymmetric conflict." (Note that
the term "asymmetric warfare" became well-known in the West only in the
1990s.) The aid given by the U.S. to the Mujahideen during the war was only covert at the tactical level; the Reagan Administration
told the world that it was helping the "freedom-loving people of
Afghanistan." Many countries, including the U.S., participated in this
proxy war against the USSR during the Cold War. It was considered cost-effective and politically successful, as it caused a drain on the resources and manpower of the USSR and turned out to be a contributing factor to the collapse of that polity in 1991.
Post-Cold War
The Kosovo War, which pitted Yugoslav security forces (Serbian police and Yugoslav army) against Albanian separatists of the guerrilla Kosovo Liberation Army,
is an example of asymmetric warfare, due to Yugoslav forces' superior
firepower and manpower, and due to the nature of
insurgency/counter-insurgency operations. The NATO bombing of Yugoslavia
(1999), which pitted NATO air power against the Yugoslav armed forces
during the Kosovo war, can also be classified as asymmetric,
exemplifying international conflict with asymmetry in weapons and
strategy/tactics.
21st century
Israel/Palestine
The ongoing conflict between Israel and some Palestinian organizations (such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad)
is a classic case of asymmetric warfare. Israel has a powerful army,
air force and navy, while the Palestinian organizations have no access
to large-scale military equipment with which to conduct operations; instead, they utilize asymmetric tactics, such as knife attacks, small gunfights, cross-border sniping, rocket attacks, and suicide bombings.
Sri Lanka
The Sri Lankan Civil War, which raged on and off from 1983 to 2009, between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
(LTTE) saw large-scale asymmetric warfare. The war started as an
insurgency and progressed to a large-scale conflict with the mixture of
guerrilla and conventional warfare, seeing the LTTE use suicide bombing
(male/female suicide bombers) both on and off the battlefield use of
explosive-filled boats for suicide attacks on military shipping; and use
of light aircraft targeting military installations.
Iraq
This Cougar in Al Anbar, Iraq, was hit by a directed charge IED approximately 300–500 lb (140–230 kg) in size.
The victory by the US-led coalition forces in the 1991 Persian Gulf War and the 2003 invasion of Iraq
demonstrated that training, tactics and technology could provide
overwhelming victories in the field of battle during modern conventional
warfare. After Saddam Hussein's
regime was removed from power, the Iraq campaign moved into a different
type of asymmetric warfare where the coalition's use of superior
conventional warfare training, tactics and technology was of much less
use against continued opposition from the various partisan groups
operating inside Iraq.
Syria
Much of the 2012–present Syrian Civil War has been asymmetrical. The Syrian National Coalition, Mujahideen, and Kurdish Democratic Union Party
have been engaging with the forces of the Syrian government through
asymmetric means. The conflict has seen large-scale asymmetric warfare
across the country, with the forces opposed to the government unable to
engage symmetrically with the Syrian government and resorting instead to
other asymmetric tactics such as suicide bombings and targeted assassinations.
The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine has resulted in a classical asymmetrical warfare scenario. Russia's superior military might, including its vast nuclear arsenal and seemingly superior armored forces have not helped Russia surmount fierce opposition from the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which has inflicted severe blows against the Russian Armed Forces by relying on technologically advanced weaponry supplied by the west.
Semi-symmetric warfare
A new understanding of warfare has emerged amidst the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Although this type of warfare does not oppose an insurgency to a
counter-insurgency force, it does involve two actors with substantially
asymmetrical means of waging war. Notably, as technology has improved
war-fighting capabilities, it has also made them more complex, thus
requiring greater expertise, training, flexibility and decentralization.
The nominally weaker military can exploit those complexities and seek
to eliminate the asymmetry. This has been observed in Ukraine, as
defending forces used a rich arsenal of anti-tank and anti-air missiles
to negate the invading forces' apparent mechanized and aerial
superiority, thus denying their ability to conduct combined arms
operations. The success of this strategy will be compounded by access to
real-time intelligence and the adversary's inability to utilize its
forces to the maximum of their potential due to factors such as the
inability to plan, brief and execute complex, full-spectrum operations.
.svg)
._Congressional_Research_Service.gif)
