11/7/2023 0 Comments Defcon statusDEFCON level 5 is defined as normal peacetime readiness. There are 5 DEFCON levels, with 5 being the least severe and 1 being the most severe. To understand the DEFCON scale, start by getting to know the levels. DEFCON is short for Defense Ready Condition. In the U.S., the DEFCON scale is used to measure how alert the country’s defense forces are in response to a potential national emergency. Note that, by definition, all military forces go to DEFCON 1 in the event of an EMERGCON being issued.Issued by the Commander in Chief of the North American Aerospace Defense Command. Air Defense Emergency: Made in the event of attacks against the US, Canada, or military installations in Greenland.Issued by unified commander or higher authority. Defense Emergency: Made in the event of major hostile attacks against U.S.These conditions (which have never been issued before) are thought to be issued in the event of nuclear war and include civilian directives as well as military ones. X Research source X Research source However, the most important alert scale besides DEFCON is likely the EMERGCON scale. These include LERTCON (used by the US and NATO allies), REDCON (used by individual US military units), and more. The DEFCON scale is not the only measure that the US government and military use to rate their readiness against external and internal dangers. X Research sourceīe aware of other US alert scales. Though some non-military, non-government sources may claim to know the current DEFCON level, there is no way to verify this. Thus, most of the information that the general public has on the DEFCON scale is based on old declassified documents or historical DEFCON "spikes" revealed to the public after the fact. Note again that the precise actions that the military takes at each DEFCON level are, for obvious reasons, kept secret.However, some anecdotal evidence suggests that top-level military leaders are able to increase the DEFCON level without the president - for instance, some sources report that the Strategic Air Command's decision to issue a DEFCON 2 during the Cuban Missile Crisis occurred without input from President Kennedy. It is usually assumed that an upgrade in military preparedness is made by the Joint Chiefs of Staff (the highest commanders in the American military) with the approval of the president. The exact process that the military uses to declare a DEFCON increase is not perfectly-understood by the public. ![]() Understand how DEFCON levels are assigned. ![]() ![]() In this case, a DEFCON 3 was issued because of the possibility that any errors in the resulting standoff might trigger open war across the Korean border (a politically and militarily tense area then, as it is today). For instance, during Operation Paul Bunyan, which resulted in a DEFCON 3, two American officers were killed by North Korean forces in the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ).
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