How do ICBM early warning systems differentiate between a real threat and a launch of a normal rocket intended to go to space?

Question

How do ICBM early warning systems differentiate between a real threat and a launch of a normal rocket intended to go to space?

In: 2759

Answer 1

In addition to other answers, people usually announce their space launches well in advance.

There was a case when Norwegians forgot to notify Russia about missile launch.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_rocket_incident

And Russian president decided that 1 missile is probably not a missile strike, so called off the nuclear response.