About | Military Readiness Alerts & Nuclear & Terror Threats

The Defcon Level Warning System is a U.S. based open source intelligence (OSINT) gathering, informative organization & community to keep the public updated on current world events and threats. We assess events and threat levels as accurately as possible through a wide variety of means to obtain open source intelligence and information.

We started in 2013 as an Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) based alerts website, but then expanded into providing more detailed alerts and news to the public after that. We implemented the U.S. military based regional combatant command system from there so that news and alerts could be categorized by appropriate world regions and easier for readers to browse and understand.

The Defcon Level Warning System then expanded into a wide reaching open source 'crowd sourcing' intelligence community with members from all over the world, including many ex military, professional intelligence and data analysts, computer scientists, forensic experts and people on the ground in various conflict hotspots worldwide who became a part of our unique intelligence filtration system. The system allows us not only to gather OSINT intelligence, but quickly analyze it, filter out bad intel and report alerts and news as accurately and quickly as possible.

If you have news or alerts to share we encourage everyone from our community to to send news and alerts to us as quickly as possible so that we can keep the public accurately informed of world events and conflicts.

Defcon Level monitors military readiness, terror threats as well as nuclear threats to the United States, and to the world globally. Since we base our Defcon status levels on both military readiness and nuclear threat risk factors, our alert level does not always indicate risk of nuclear war since both factors are tied together.

For example, if we were to be at risk for a nuclear war the United States military readiness would be raised by default, the same as if we had a terror threat or any other kind of threat. For this reason, our level is an overall indicator for military readiness rather than simply how close we are to a nuclear war.

• Question: How do I receive alerts and news from Defcon Level Warning System?
• Answer: Generally, news and alerts are posted out on Our Paid App first, and then out to the website, and our social media channels after that. Our paid app includes a lot of information not posted here as well. Check our Full List of social media channels to see the different ways you can receive alerts and news on various social media platforms. If we add more ways down the road they will be added to that page as well.

• Question: How Accurate Are The Alerts On This Site?
• Answer: Nothing on this site is automated. Everything on it is hand verified and hand written by our intel team, and by investigative journalist Donald Standeford before being hand-coded into the website. You can Follow Donald Here.

• Question: Do the warnings on this site show the risk of nuclear war, or conflict or both?
• Answer: The Regional Alerts on this site show risk of war or conflict, not necessarily nuclear risk, though that may or may not be included depending on the threat risk. The Overall Level include both military readiness and nuclear risk. We are currently putting up a page that shows risk of nuclear war, and it will be linked here when it is finished. We will also be changing the icons for regional alerts so that they will not be confused with the overall level.

• Question: Is the current Defcon level made public?
• Answer: No, the current level is not made public right away for security reasons. The alert status for each military branch may also differ at any given time. The status levels on the 'current' page and regional command pages are determined by community intelligence alerts and known threats but is not recorded on the official Change History page until a status change is revealed to the public by the U.S. government.

• Question: Are the 'live' alert levels on the website just a guess as opposed to the Official Levels?
• Answer: A 'guess' is a casual or spontaneous conclusion. An 'estimate' is based on thought and/or data. What we do is collect large amounts of data and put forth an estimate of what our intel community believes it should be based on all of the open source (OSINT) intelligence and data we've collected from all over the world and our analysis of that data. The live alerts are in no way trying to guess the government alert status, it is a separate assessment based on data that we have.

• Question: Is Defcon Level Warning System unbiased in their reporting?
• Answer: Defcon Level Warning System is biased towards 'truth' outside of propaganda, beyond slant, beyond manipulative agendas and beyond narrative. What is truth? Whatever the evidence supports. We are human, but we do our very best to report based on intel, information, evidence and facts.

• Question: What side of the political spectrum does Defcon Level Warning System lean?
• Answer: We don't believe that truth is (or should be) regulated by any political spectrum at all and is instead outside of said spectrum. Furthermore, we believe that a little maturity and respect goes a long way in honoring differences in opinion among people. Our intel community is comprised of people of all political leanings, so long as respect and maturity is maintained, and we strive to report the news based on facts and truth and not based on political opinion or leaning.

• Question: How is Defcon Level Warning System Funded?
• Answer: We are a non profit organization and depend entirely on ad revenue, donations (crowdfunding), paid subscriptions and affiliate programs to continue operating. If you would like to pitch in and contribute to the cause the next question below will help you find out how to do just that!

• Question: I want to become a contributor, how do I go about partnering with Defcon Level Warning System in various ways?
• Answer: Great! Visit the Contribute page where you will find all of the ways you can partner with us and contribute to the Defcon Level Warning System.

• Question: How do I share the current Defcon levels warning status on my website?
• Answer: To share the Defcon levels current status on your website copy the share code located on our share page and paste into your own website.

• Question: Which defcon level is good and which level is bad?
• Answer: Level 5 is a state of peace and is a good thing, while Level 1 is a state of war or imminent nuclear threat and a very bad thing.

• Question: Is Defcon level 5 good or bad?
• Answer: Defcon level 5 is good, it is the lowest status in the warning system and a state of peace.

• Question: Is Defcon level 1 good or bad?
• Answer: Alert level 1 is bad, it means we are in a state of war or imminent nuclear threat.

• Question: Has the United States ever gone to Defcon level 1?
• Answer: No, the United States has never been at Defcon 1 to date since the creation of the defcon levels alert system by NORAD in 1959.

• Question: What's the highest Defcon Level the U.S has ever reached?
• Answer: Highest ever reached was alert level 2 during the Cuban missile crisis in October 22, 1962.

• Question: Where can I find maps that show where all the conflicts are going on in the world?
• Answer: You can find maps that show the current world conflicts, as well as conflicts the United States is currently involved in on our World Conflict Maps page.

• Question: What is the current Defcon Level right now?
• Answer: The current alert status can be found on or current level page, long with other important information about the alert system.

• Question: Has the United States ever been at defcon 2?
• Answer: Yes, the only time the U.S reached level 2 was during the Cuban missile crisis in October 22, 1962 but only the Strategic Air Command branch was ordered to level 2. In 1991 it was also changed to 2 during the Gulf War.

• Question: When was the defcon levels warning status last updated or changed?
• Answer: The Defcon levels status is updated daily, and the last official change was September 11th, 2001 during the attack on the twin towers. Although the current defcon level depends on community alerts and information, we do not record the defcon level as 'official' until the 'official' level has been released to the public at any given time.

• Question: What type of events change the Defcon level warning status?
• Answer: Things that can affect the alert level are imminent nuclear threats or a heightened state of alert in one or more of the U.S military branches.

• Question: Where do I find current government alerts and notices?
• Answer: You may find current government alerts and notices on our Advisories page.

• Question: What Time Zone Does Defcon Level Warning System Use?
• Answer: Defcon Level Warning System now uses Coordinated Universal Time For All Services (UTC).

The Defcon Level Warning System is a Private intelligence gathering informative organization to keep the public updated on current world events, threats and conflicts around the world.