first strike

first strike (plural first strikes)

1. An attack (typically nuclear) launched without warning in the absence of a prior attack by one's opponent, with the intention of destroying one's opponent's ability to retaliate.

   During the Cold War, both sides feared that the other was preparing to launch a first strike.

   • 2017 June 23, Howard Tayler, Schlock Mercenary‎, archived from the original on 20 January 2024:

     "Where I come from 'proactive defense' is a euphemism for "first strike." "This is not that approach, Putzho. We have evolved to defend ourselves with a much subtler, gentler approach."

   • 2019 August 26, qntm, “Unthreaded”, in SCP Foundation‎, archived from the original on 2 January 2024:

     In the end, the question proved to be academic. When SCP-3125 arrived, whether it knew ω-0 was there or not, it took no special action against it, and had no need to. Most of ω-0's members' anchors were Foundationers, or Foundation-adjacent. With those people's minds blown away in the first strike, the dense web of mutual memory which had held the Task Force together since its formation tore loose. More than half of the Task Force was cast into the void and died; the final, real death they had evaded for years.

• preemptive strike
• second strike
• third strike