Launch On Warning or Fire On Warning is a strategy of nuclear weapon retaliation that gained recognition during the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States. With the invention of intercontinental ballistic missiles, launch on warning became an integral part of mutually assured destruction theory. Under the strategy, a retaliatory strike is launched upon warning of enemy nuclear attack while its missiles are still in the air and before detonation occurs. U.S. land-based missiles can reportedly be launched within five minutes of a presidential decision to do so and submarine-based missiles within 15 minutes.
Shortly before 9 a.m. on November 9, 1979, the computers at North American Aerospace Defense Command's Cheyenne Mountain site, the Pentagon's National Military Command Center, and the Alternate National Military Command Center in Fort Ritchie, Maryland, all showed what the United States feared most—a massive Soviet nuclear strike aimed at destroying the U.S. command system and nuclear forces. A threat assessment conference, involving senior officers at all three command posts, was convened immediately. Launch control centers for Minuteman missiles, buried deep below the prairie grass in the American West, received preliminary warning that the United States was under a massive nuclear attack.
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