Is that what happened in my last war
So, if I am at war, it is pointless for me to go to Defcon 1, since my opponent can use spies till he successfully changes my defcon to 4 before inflicting massive damage. As I did not have a whole lot of spies on hand and my opponent had max spies, it was a guaranteed defcon 4 every time. I kept wondering of the "randomness" factor but thought it was just my unlucky break.
IMHO that is a huge door for abuse, if it is a guaranteed defcon 4 on success from defcon 1. And since I always had to change my defcon from 4 from the prior day to 1 and then got spied on, which obviously results in me not being able to change my defcon again for the day.
So, defcon basically becomes useless once someone successfully spies and changes it for you