distant early warning

noun

1. a US radar detection system to warn of missile attack See also DEW line

Example Sentences

The list of benefits also included intelligence, the kind not gathered by spies but by something better: having eyes and ears in places where it’s hard to go, having a network of care and reciprocity that wrapped around the world, creating a “distant early warning” system for everything from epidemics to grassroots discontent.

From Salon

Purists proudly flaunted 1964 Barry Goldwater gear; Richard Nixon was briefly exiled from the pantheon and then redeemed, in a distant early warning of the grievance politics that led us to Trump.

From Salon

The DEW, or Distant Early Warning, line cost about $7.5 billion to build in today’s money.

From New York Times

"The endothelium has developed a distant early warning system to alert the body to get ready for an invasion if there's trouble brewing," said Dr. Peter Libby, a cardiologist and research scientist at Harvard Medical School.

From Salon

There were certainly some white people who lived west of Grove Street, because they were working-class or because they were in a hippie commune or because they were making a half-baked political point or because they were the distant early warning system for gentrification.

From Salon