If you're waiting for this site to go to Defcon 2 before you act I think you're missing the point of being prepared for a possible Nuclear war.
There is no preparation for nuclear war besides living each day as though you may die at any time - because you might. We are all far more likely to die in an automobile accident, in an accident at home, or from disease.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm Therefore, keep your soul constantly prepared for death.
As far as this site is concerned and it's number, use the site as a news and rumor aggregator for your entertainment. Don't sit up at night worried about war and don't make your decisions based on a number at a site.
Completely false. Civilians can take many steps to prepare for a nuclear war, most of which involve prior planing, pre-stocked supplies of food and water, and keeping themselves informed on current events. None of this involves any change to how they live their daily lives.
We're probably getting a bit off topic for this thread, and I don't want to start a tangent or derail conversation, but I must respectfully disagree.
I've been a prepper for more than twenty years and I come from a family of preppers. Prep what you eat, eat what you prep, etc. But I've come to the conclusion that prepping, while excellent for getting through short to mid-term shocks, is essentially hopeless for long term situations such as nuclear war. Eventually, your food will either run out or you'll become malnourished. Your water will run out. Same with your batteries, your fuel, your medicine, your ammo, and every other consumable. Your equipment will break down - including your water purification system. And in a post-apocalyptic scenario, you're not going to be able to ever get any replacements. Even setting aside the mass extinction of life forms and assuming that nature is somehow untouched, then you're going to eventually need to start truly living off the land. Say, though, that you've stored seeds and books on how to identify edible plants. Without the knowledge of how to farm, the equipment for farming, and the experience of identifying and preparing natural edibles, then you're very likely to die of starvation or accidental poisoning.
It's simply not enough to live a modern lifestyle with a shelter and a room full of preps. In order to really be prepared for major events, you need to become a self-sustaining farmer and naturalist. Those hermit naturalists living far away from population centers might fare the best, but really - it's still very likely that they will die from the climate change that accompanies nuclear war. And what are they living for anyway?
I'm sure everyone has their reason for living - their answer to the existential crisis that comes on them in the night - but at least for me, I live to obtain eternal salvation and to see my children grow up happy and productive and to eventually earn their own eternal salvation. I don't need to maximize my days on this Earth. So, I suppose I've turned some kind of corner in my life where I have stopped preparing for a day that may never come but rather I try to get today done correctly. I make sure that my kids, every hour of every day, are rearing up right and that I give God the love he deserves. I store up now rewards in heaven rather than preps in the shelter.
I don't want to get too preachy. I mean, I still prep. I make sure that I have enough on hand to be comfortable when runs on stores happen. It's just that my preps today are for short duration events. Therefore, the preps are much easier and don't take up much of my time, money, or thought. And instead I focus on living my life today.
And I still read this site frequently, even if I don't say much. It's the best site for getting news and rumors about military conflicts and I'm interested in those things. It makes for great debates, conjectures, and discussion - so long as we all remember that for the unlucky people in the war zones it is no conjecture. For those people, we should pray.
Anyway, much love and respect to you, RiffRaff, and to everyone on this site.