Introduction

Naval operational art can be successfully applied across the entire spectrum of conflict at sea, from diverse operations short of war to high-intensity conventional war. Operational art is the result of a long evolution in the character of war on land and at sea. The first rudiments of operational warfare at sea can be traced to the era of the oar. The main factors in the emergence of modern operational warfare at sea were several radical naval technological advances combined with changes in society, industry, and the international security environment which led to significant changes in the character of war at sea. The Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905 was the first war at sea in which diverse naval actions were conducted almost continuously. In the early 1920s, Soviet theoreticians used the terms grand tactics and lower strategy to describe the more complex combat of World War I and the Russian Civil War.