This is to be distinguished from retaliatory force and violence.

Under the recent agreement retaliatory forces will diminish more rapidly than their corresponding offensive first-strike forces.

The analyst said China could protect its retaliatory forces because it could destroy satellites in space.

Retributive justice, meaning retaliatory force, is often a component of the contracts imagined for an anarcho-capitalist society.

The use of defensive or retaliatory force, on the other hand, is appropriate.

The pact prohibits defenses formidable enough to intercept and destroy the other side's retaliatory forces that survive the first strike.

Many American experts consider 18 too few for a secure retaliatory force, let alone 12.

"There is no profit in attacking first, because you use up more missiles attacking another person's retaliatory force than you destroy," he said.

They have urged that the US use overwhelming, retaliatory force to "end states who sponsor terrorism", using whatever means are necessary to end the threat.

But U.S. officials said no use of retaliatory force was imminent.