A cruise missile is a guided missile used against terrestrial or naval targets that remain in the atmosphere and flies the major portion of its flight path at an approximately constant speed. Cruise missiles are designed to deliver a large warhead over long distances with high precision. Modern cruise missiles are capable of traveling at high subsonic, supersonic, or hypersonic speeds, are self-navigating, and are able to fly on a non-ballistic, extremely low-altitude trajectory.
WarGames is a 1983 American science fiction techno-thriller film written by Lawrence Lasker and Walter F. Parkes and directed by John Badham. The film, which stars Matthew Broderick, Dabney Coleman, John Wood, and Ally Sheedy, follows David Lightman (Broderick), a young hacker who unwittingly accesses a United States military supercomputer programmed to simulate, predict and execute nuclear war against the Soviet Union.
A ballistic missile is a type of missile that uses projectile motion to deliver warheads on a target. These weapons are powered only during relatively brief periods—most of the flight is unpowered. Short-range ballistic missiles stay within the Earth's atmosphere, while intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) are launched on a sub-orbital flight.
In nuclear strategy, a first strike or preemptive strike is a preemptive surprise attack employing overwhelming force. First strike capability is a country's ability to defeat another nuclear power by destroying its arsenal to the point where the attacking country can survive the weakened retaliation while the opposing side is left unable to continue war. The preferred methodology is to attack the opponent's strategic nuclear weapon facilities, command and control sites, and storage depots first. The strategy is called counterforce.
Mutual assured destruction (MAD) is a doctrine of military strategy and national security policy which posits that a full-scale use of nuclear weapons by an attacker on a nuclear-armed defender with second-strike capabilities would cause the complete annihilation of both the attacker and the defender. It is based on the theory of rational deterrence, which holds that the threat of using strong weapons against the enemy prevents the enemy's use of those same weapons. The strategy is a form of Nash equilibrium in which, once armed, neither side has any incentive to initiate a conflict or to disarm.
Alien vs. Predator is a science-fiction action horror media franchise created by comic book writers Randy Stradley and Chris Warner. The series is a crossover between, and part of, the larger Alien and Predator franchises, depicting the two species as being in conflict with one another. It began as a comic book series in 1989, before being adapted into a video game series in the 1990s. Produced and distributed by 20th Century Fox, the film series began with Alien vs. Predator (2004), directed by Paul W. S. Anderson, and was followed by Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (2007), directed by the Brothers Strause, and the development of a third film has been delayed indefinitely. The series has led to numerous novels, comics, and video game spin-offs such as Aliens vs. Predator released in 2010.
The Sum of All Fears is a political thriller novel, written by Tom Clancy and released on August 14, 1991. Serving as the sequel to Clear and Present Danger (1989), main character Jack Ryan, who is now the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, tries to stop a crisis concerning the Middle East peace process where Palestinian and former East German terrorists conspire to bring the United States and Soviet Union into nuclear war. It debuted at number one on the New York Times bestseller list. A film adaptation, which is a reboot of the Jack Ryan film series and starring Ben Affleck as the younger iteration of the CIA analyst, was released on May 31, 2002.
Ellen Louise Ripley, often referred to simply as Ripley, is a fictional character and protagonist of the Alien film series, played by American actress Sigourney Weaver. The character earned Weaver worldwide recognition, and the role remains her most famous to date. Ridley Scott, director of the first film in the series, Alien, made the decision early in production to switch Ripley from a standard male action hero to a heroine.
Missile defense is a system, weapon, or technology involved in the detection, tracking, interception, and also the destruction of attacking missiles. Conceived as a defense against nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), its application has broadened to include shorter-ranged non-nuclear tactical and theater missiles.
A no-win situation, also called a lose-lose situation, is one where a person has choices, but no choice leads to a net gain. For example, if a company finds a dangerous fault in one of its products, they can either issue a product recall and take some reputational damage, or allow the product to harm people: the company is in a no-win situation.
The Plowshares movement is an anti-nuclear weapons and Christian pacifist movement that advocates active resistance to war. The group often practices a form of protest that involves the damaging of weapons and military property. The movement gained notoriety in the early 1980s when several members damaged nuclear warhead nose cones and were subsequently convicted. The name refers to the text of prophet Isaiah who said that swords shall be beaten into plowshares.
WarGames is a 1984 video game developed by Coleco for the ColecoVision, and later ported to the Atari 8-bit family and Commodore 64. The game's goal is to defend the United States against nuclear attack, much in the style of a less frantic Missile Command. The principal designer was Coleco staffer Joseph Angiolillo.
Chase the Express, known in North America as Covert Ops: Nuclear Dawn, is a video game created by Sugar & Rockets for the PlayStation, and released in 2000. On March 16, 2000 Activision announced that they had acquired the North American publishing rights to Chase the Express. The game was then renamed Covert Ops: Nuclear Dawn for the North American market.
The Martin Mace was a ground-launched cruise missile developed from the earlier Martin TM-61 Matador. It used a new self-contained navigation system that eliminated the need to get updates from ground-based radio stations, and thereby allowed it to fly further beyond the front lines. To take advantage of this longer practical range, Mace was larger than Matador and could travel a longer total distance.
Terrain contour matching, or TERCOM, is a navigation system used primarily by cruise missiles. It uses a contour map of the terrain that is compared with measurements made during flight by an on-board radar altimeter. A TERCOM system considerably increases the accuracy of a missile compared with inertial navigation systems (INS). The increased accuracy allows a TERCOM-equipped missile to fly closer to obstacles and at generally lower altitudes, making it harder to detect by ground radar.
Alien is a science-fiction horror and action media franchise centered on the film series which depicts warrant officer Ellen Ripley and her battles with an extraterrestrial lifeform, commonly referred to as "the Alien" or Xenomorph.
Robot Wars is a 1993 American cyberpunk film directed by Albert Band and written by Charles Band and Jackson Barr. It tells the story of a hotshot mech pilot in a post-apocalyptic 2041 who must stop mech hijackers from provoking global war.
Repo Chick is a 2009 American comedy film written and directed by Alex Cox. Like Cox's first feature, Repo Man, it centers on the repossession trade and a mysterious vehicle with a large reward. It is the second of Cox's "microfeatures", produced for a very low budget and given very little theatrical distribution. It was released on DVD in North America and the United Kingdom in February 2011.
Outside the Wire is a 2021 American science fiction action film directed by Mikael Håfström. It stars Anthony Mackie as an android officer who works with a drone pilot to stop a global catastrophe. Emily Beecham, Michael Kelly, and Pilou Asbæk also star. The film was released by Netflix on January 15, 2021, and received mixed reviews from critics.
On 8 January 2020, in a military operation code named Operation Martyr Soleimani, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) launched over 12 ballistic missiles at the Ayn al-Asad airbase in Al Anbar Governorate, western Iraq, as well as another airbase in Erbil, in response to the assassination of Major General Qasem Soleimani by a United States drone strike.
