distant early warning

British  

noun

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

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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