Definition of "beachhead" [beach•head]

• A position on an enemy shoreline captured by troops in advance of an invading force. (noun)
• A first achievement that opens the way for further developments; a foothold: "It is not yet clear whether the ecologists will establish a beachhead in the economists' carefully constructed intellectual empire” ( Peter Passell). (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "The secretary general noted that he is anxious to resume that role and has established what he called a beachhead with his acting special representative, who will be based in Cyprus and available to work in Baghdad."
• "The Newsweek story, however misleading, is serving as a kind of beachhead for similarly misguided pronouncements by people who cannot bear to admit how wrong they were to buy into the lies that delivered the United States -- and the Iraqi people -- into the morass of the past seven years."
• "He has also been criticized for not mentioning that Roman Catholics were persecuted by nativists in the early 1800s who said the immigrants would establish a papal "beachhead" in America."