22, 1962 SAC ordered its B-52 bombers on airborne alert. What that meant for military units: On Oct. Strategic Air Command was placed at DEFCON 2 while the rest of the military was at DEFCON 3. Nuclear war is imminent, so you should probably get into the bunker.ĭuring the Cuban Missile Crisis, U.S. The missiles are ready to go and waiting on the order, and bomber crews are in the air near their targets.ĭEFCON 1: Maximum readiness. Things are getting really serious and we are one step away from pushing the button. Troops start fueling up missiles and bomber crews are getting ready.ĭEFCON 2: Air Force is ready to deploy and engage in less than six hours. There’s an increase in force readiness above normal readiness and things are heating up. slightly increases intelligence and strengthens security measures.ĭEFCON 3: Air Force ready to mobilize in 15 minutes. All is calm, the skies are blue, and we aren’t even thinking about nukes.ĭEFCON 4: Above normal readiness. They are:ĭEFCON 5: Normal peacetime readiness. There are five DEFCON levels, which signify varying conditions of readiness. What are the levels and what do they mean? But unlike the saying of “going to DEFCON 5,” the worst possibility is at level one. The levels are primarily used by the Joint Chiefs of Staff or commanders of joint commands, and can be in force military-wide, though they are usually only applied to specific units. It created a system of “five different alert levels with detailed, if ambiguous, descriptions and expected actions by military forces at each threat level,” according to the Encyclopedia of the Cold War. Though it has somewhat changed over time, the DEFCON system was proposed by NORAD in 1959.
pointing all of its nukes at Moscow - and Russia doing exactly the same back at Washington - the Air Force created the North American Aerospace Defense Command ( NORAD) to provide early warning and defense against nuclear threats. The need for DEFCON came from the Cold War. In essence, the number next to DEFCON tells everyone how close we are to getting into a nuclear shooting war. “I was so pissed off I went to DEFCON 5” or a similar phrase in the lexicon means you are at the highest level of anger, but it doesn’t make any sense when you explore what DEFCON really means.ĭEFCON, the shortened-version of “Defense Readiness Condition,” is a five-level scale of alert status that the U.S. uses to determine nuclear readiness.
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