The phrase "a devastating response to" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used when describing a reaction or reply that has a significant negative impact or effect on a situation or individual.
Example: "The critics delivered a devastating response to the film, highlighting its numerous flaws and lack of originality."
Alternatives: "a crushing reply to" or "a scathing reaction to".
"You need to be absolutely clear that there will be a devastating response to aggression.
And in doing so, it constitutes a devastating response to the letter from Ralph Nader that appears on the same page.
In a devastating response to claims made in the Guardian's letters page by the NFU, the soil scientist Robert Palmer calculated that so much compaction and erosion is caused by maize growing that a 10-hectare field causes the run-off of 375m litres of water.
His essay on Philip Larkin -- written in response to Andrew Motion's 1993 biography of that poet -- stands as a devastating response to those politically correct critics who have assailed Larkin as a misogynist and bigot, trying to judge his verse in terms of his life and his life in terms of current social mores.
While it was not a devastating response to the 2-0 defeat by Newcastle last Saturday, where Blues boss Jose Mourinho said he made 11 mistakes in referring to his team selection, it earned Chelsea their third successive win in Europe.
It recognizes, as the Joint Chiefs know, that we have enough conventional firepower to deliver a devastating response to any attack.
Finally, at a candidates forum, he gave a famous refutation to a voter making the charge: Phoenix Gazette columnist John Kolbe would later label this "the most devastating response to a potentially troublesome political issue I've ever heard".
Stoppard is fascinated by the Plastic People, by the idea that the most devastating response to tyranny might be the simple wish to be left alone.
To prevent Mr. Assad from staging a devastating response, the American-backed alliance would have to create a countrywide no-fly zone, which would first require taking apart Syrian air defenses.
The second was deterrence, which assumed that America's defenses could be arrayed to assure a devastating response and therefore keep the enemy from acting.
