In times of crisis, heightened tensions and mistrust increase the risk of miscommunication between states, further exacerbating escalatory dynamics. In such contexts, communication between adversaries reduces, and any communication that does occur increases in ambiguity and hostility. The effectiveness of existing regular channels for communication during peacetime – such as treaty processes and confidence-building measures – often becomes limited. Not only can such diplomatic channels be too slow and bureaucratic to effectively deal with an escalating crisis, but during times of heightened tensions, adversaries may feel disillusioned about international or bilateral processes that they perceive to operate against their strategic interests.
As George Bernard Shaw put it, ‘the single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place’. Without effective and reliable avenues to verify potential misunderstandings, the history of nuclear near-misses has shown that it is easy for one side to assume that the other shares the same understanding of events. One of the most prominent examples of where a lack of effective communication channels led to rapid escalation is the Cuban missile crisis. Multiple crisis points throughout this period occurred, in part, due to a series of miscommunications between the Soviet Union and the US. Following the shooting-down of a US U-2 reconnaissance jet over Cuba, a mixture of muddled direct and indirect communications between Moscow and Washington led to a failure in understanding on each side. Records of government discussions from the time make clear that both Kennedy and Khrushchev were acutely aware of the risk of nuclear escalation once a certain point in the crisis had been reached. Having come so close to nuclear war, the crisis ultimately resulted in the establishment of a ‘hotline’ between Moscow and Washington, ensuring a permanent and direct channel for communication in times of crisis.
In the Indo-Pacific, despite the regular low-level skirmishes between Indian and Pakistani armed forces and multiple instances of major crises in recent history, there remains limited direct communications between the two powers. The US has often played a third-party role in de-escalating incidents between India and Pakistan, such as in the 2002 standoff where rapid escalation between the two countries posed serious concern surrounding a nuclear war arising through a miscommunication. A permanent communication channel between India and Pakistan was established in 2004 to reduce the threat of accidental nuclear war, following two days of talks on nuclear confidence-building measures. However, the continued lack of trust between the two governments calls into question the effectiveness of this mechanism. Various proposals have called for improvements to the hotline agreement between India and Pakistan, whether by directly connecting their nuclear commands or by introducing other aspects of military-to-military communication. The issue of miscommunication is likely to become even more complex as both India and Pakistan seek to introduce new technologies and capabilities, and political tensions continue to rise. The addition of sea-based nuclear weapons to India’s nuclear arsenal and Pakistan’s development of naval nuclear capabilities, for instance, pose additional challenges. Given the low frequency of radio waves for communication when submarines are submerged, it may become more difficult to discern the true pattern of events should an incident occur at sea, which could easily lead to inadvertent escalation.
However, even where reliable channels for communication pre-exist a crisis, their success largely depends on both sides having an interest in a resolution. In the context of deep mistrust and mutual hostilities, even where messages have been conveyed, adversaries may misunderstand one another due to entrenched beliefs and perceptions of the adversary, or because information was poorly communicated, not relayed to the right individual or deliberately misleading/ambiguous. Yet the existence of these emergency channels of communication does, at least in part, demonstrate a recognition of a mutual interest in preventing nuclear war.
The cultural and linguistic differences between states are an important, but often overlooked, aspect of communication both during a crisis and outside of it. The most prominent case, and widely contested by language experts, is the US’s interpretation of the Japanese word mokusatsu and whether its translation had a subsequent impact on the decision to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. At the close of the Second World War, the US submitted terms of surrender to Japan, contained within the Potsdam Declaration, to which Japanese prime minister Suzuki Kantaro responded in a press conference with the phrase mokusatsu. The translation has multiple meanings, including its common diplomatic use – translated to ‘no comment’ – as well as other meanings, such as the US interpretation – ‘to treat with silent contempt’. While the direct impact of the mokusatsu incident on US decision-making is unclear, the case demonstrates the potentially catastrophic consequences of misinterpretation in cross-cultural communications at times when tensions are high. Without careful translation, language can be easily recontextualized due to linguistic and cultural differences. Cultural differences are reflected in language – words or concepts commonly understood in one language may not exist in another, or may carry different meanings, among other linguistic nuances, that can lead to confusion and mistrust in crisis communication and political discourse.
Outside of crisis, a failure between nations to properly understand one another exacerbates mistrust. Throughout the 2000s, bilateral nuclear diplomacy between China and the US was marred by poor communication and a failure to adequately ascertain one another’s goals. The US, remaining unconvinced by the Chinese Ministry of Defence’s nuclear deterrent posture and policy of No First Use (NFU), conducted widespread scrutiny of Chinese military literature. This led to unfortunate interpretations of certain documents, including assumptions that unreliable news stories were a representation of official Chinese positions. Misreadings of Chinese nuclear weapons policy alongside other military doctrine, coupled with poor translation, impeded the ability of analysts to accurately interpret text, and led to assumptions that the Chinese Ministry of Defence had secretly altered its NFU commitment.
Although machine-generated translations have improved significantly since then, considering their now widespread use, it is important to note that such technology may not always accurately capture contextual nuances. While the promise of technology to enhance translation is considerable, without due investment in personnel possessing fluent language skills and cultural understanding, overreliance on machine translation could introduce the risk of substantial misinterpretation.
While the promise of technology to enhance translation is considerable, overreliance on machine translation could introduce the risk of substantial misinterpretation.
In the 21st century, the risk of miscommunication is growing as the environment in which nuclear weapons exist continues to become more complex. The introduction of new technologies in the nuclear weapons system, cyber activities, disinformation campaigns, AI-generated ‘deepfakes’, the emergence of new nuclear-armed actors, the changing relationship between nuclear and conventional weapons, and a shifting global political landscape all exacerbate the dynamics of uncertainty.
Uncertainty surrounding the intention and capabilities of an adversary is compounded by policies of deliberate ambiguity and signalling in declaratory statements and nuclear postures. Today, the ‘fog of war’ is more complex than ever. The increasingly provocative rhetoric and use of veiled threats from public officials, such as that of Russian president Vladimir Putin in his 2023 speech declaring the suspension of Russian participation in the New START agreement with the US, all heighten the risk of information overload in decision-making.
Tools and solutions
Miscommunication presents two levels of risk. At its most dangerous – and most likely –miscommunication occurs during a crisis, potentially leading to a catastrophic outcome. Outside of crises scenarios, miscommunication has the potential to worsen relations between potential adversaries, helping to precipitate future crises. Behavioural interventions can be applied to both circumstances, though are likely to be most usefully applied before crises unfold, or to build better communication mechanisms as crises ‘cool down’, as in the aftermath of the Cuban missile crisis. This is because, in times of extremely poor relations between states, even good faith attempts to communicate are less likely to be effective, as states are primed to assume the worst of an adversary’s intentions. Overconfidence in beliefs about the adversary can also worsen miscommunication, since overconfidence can drive individuals to overlook, misinterpret and selectively hear information.
A crucial kind of miscommunication results from a failure of one state to effectively signal its intentions to other states. This can occur during moments in which states outline their nuclear posture or discuss or demonstrate their nuclear weapons stance publicly. These include following nuclear weapons posture reviews, public statements by leaders or officials and military exercises. This could also include bilateral arms control treaties, such as New START, which put transparent limits on nuclear warhead numbers and categories of delivery vehicles. Potential solutions to this form of miscommunication include:
Defaults for better communication
In nuclear weapons policy, the closest thing to a default is a state’s declaratory policy. A default describes a preselected choice (when to use a nuclear weapon) which will be made in a specific circumstance (e.g. following a first strike by an adversary). In the absence of significant alterations in declaratory policy, steps can still be implemented to reduce the chance of nuclear postures being misinterpreted – avoiding signalling intended to provoke is one such example. More speculatively, NFU agreements could be agreed on a bilateral basis, for example with China (which itself already has a NFU policy). This could have positive spillover effects, potentially altering the norms of the international security environment. Unilateral pre-commitments could be made by states to change their posture if another state did (e.g. ‘if country X declared a sole use policy, so would we’). Pre-commitments can be anchored to timely moments: for example, country X could pre-commit to engaging in constructive nuclear diplomacy if/when relations with country Y improve. As such, pre-commitments can serve as signals that country X is willing to work on improving its relationship with country Y. However, such policies necessitate a willingness to initiate a level of transparency surrounding nuclear weapons postures that is often at odds with the current policies of ambiguity that sit at the core of states’ nuclear weapons doctrines. As such, the success of declaratory policies like NFU agreements ultimately depends on the consistency of actions and practices of a nation, and must be accompanied by a pattern of transparency to be seen as credible.
Emulation teams
In addition to translating important documents such as posture reviews into key languages, taking steps to ‘emulate’ these documents can ensure their intended effect is adequately conveyed in those other languages. A notable example of this going wrong occurred in 2009, when then US secretary of state Hillary Clinton presented Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov with a red button stating ‘overcharge’ instead of ‘reset’ in Russian. One way of testing that a text has been successfully ‘emulated’ would be to test it out on different target groups before publication, or to convene an internal ‘red team’ comprising experts with the necessary regional, cultural and linguistic expertise.
Developing ways of describing a common reality within a regional context
Expert interviewees stressed the importance of, for example, India and Pakistan developing their own vernacular for describing nuclear risks, as opposed to relying on a Western vocabulary that does not fit culturally or linguistically. Interviewees emphasized that, in certain cultures, metaphor, hyperbole and ‘bluff’ are used more commonly than in others. A first-step solution might be to convene a cross-border working group to create a glossary of nuclear terminology as it applies to a regional context. Such an initiative may have the additional benefit of building trust between parties.
Meeting in-person
Face-to-face meetings may contribute to increased empathy between officials and leaders from different countries, and may reduce the likelihood of the miscommunication that can result from inferences drawn from public statements. As Marcus Holmes argues, bilateral meetings such as the US–Russia Strategic Stability dialogues have been effective at building common understanding and avoiding false assumptions. As Amy Woolf notes, even where arms-control measures were not codified into legally binding treaties, these dialogues still enabled Russia and the US to adopt transparency, communication and risk-reduction measures, thus contributing to strategic stability.
As a crisis develops, behavioural insights can also be applied to de-escalate
the situation:
Perspective rotations
These are an important way of developing strategic empathy or attempting to see a situation from the perspective of an adversary. They can also lead to better forecasting and therefore better countermeasures against the actions of hostile actors. Perspective rotations may reveal to participants that the language they are using to describe their intentions and actions might be interpreted more aggressively by adversaries than intended and, conversely, that the language and actions of their adversaries may have other motives beyond simply wanting to escalate tensions. The rationale behind this is to attempt to move away from existing assumptions and entrenched thinking that leads to ‘caricatures’ of an adversary. This helps decision-makers think laterally, explore alternative explanations and avoid jumping to the conclusion that most easily comes to mind. Such practices are already regularly used in education spaces, such as in Model UN settings, where students emulate international diplomacy through debate on topics from the perspective of a national position different from their own.
Perspective rotations can be integrated into training regimens for decision-makers or brought out in response to a specific crisis. To hold a perspective rotation:
- A senior member of the organization (e.g. the foreign ministry) should start by choosing a scenario for the rotation.
- These scenarios might be a situation analogous to a current conflict, a real example from the past or a fictional scenario.
- Participants should represent the adversary in the chosen scenario.
- The leader of the perspective rotation can represent the perspective of their own country, collecting the responses of participants playing as the adversary.
- When the scenario has played out, the leader of the rotation should hold a feedback session in which participants reflect on whether new insights have been gained on the current conflict.
Internal communication
This also comes under strain during a crisis. Ensuring that there are standardized and easy ways of communicating that are developed, practised and refined during periods of non-crisis within and across government and military is crucial to ensuring that stakeholders can continue to communicate clearly and effectively through the crisis. This includes the dissemination of instructions by the central authority. These channels must leave space for contrary opinions and avoid framing options in particular ways (e.g. such that escalatory steps are preferred for reasons beyond their strategic merit). Opposing opinions can help target behavioural biases such as the ‘affect bias’ – where positive feelings towards a decision are substituted for rational arguments in its favour. A combination of the tools identified elsewhere in this paper, including red-teaming and perspective rotations, can also ensure better internal communication during crises.
Use mediators
When tensions begin to increase between states, miscommunication becomes more likely. Identifying dependable third parties that both states can trust as a messenger helps ensure that reliable communication channels between the conflicting states are maintained. For instance, the US’s role in mediating diplomatic talks between India and Pakistan during periods of heightened tensions to prevent further nuclear escalation.
Redundancy planning
A safe assumption, especially during periods of crisis, is that miscommunication will occur, including between allies. It is therefore essential to develop mechanisms to detect when miscommunication has occurred, and to deploy alternative avenues of communication.
Two ways of detecting such miscommunication are:
- Following a meeting, each side writes an appreciation detailing their understanding of what was decided during the meeting. This may reveal that the two sides were talking at cross-purposes more than they had thought during the meeting. This exercise offers an opportunity for correction.
- Using intermediaries. If possible, identify a member of the team who is well positioned to ‘translate’ the intentions of each side for the other, due to a close working relationship or advanced cultural knowledge. In the Second World War, this role was played by John Dill, who was an effective go-between for George Marshall and Alan Brooke.
