ABSTRACT
Higher level operations at sea can be defined as active, organised hostilities involving on both sides fleet units and/or aircraft and the use of major weapons. Higher level operations tend to have an aim that is expressed in military terms. The formal limitation of the area of higher level conflict at sea is an appealing idea. The higher level conflict at sea in the Yom Kippur War involved no declared area. Higher level operations still fall into the two general categories of sea use and sea denial, though in operations of large scale the two may be juxtaposed or even merged. Landings from the sea have been a feature of more than a handful of higher level operations carried out by medium powers since the Second World War. It is a characteristic of battle at sea that it should have a beginning, a middle and an end.
