Risk of unintentional nuclear war due to international crises

Similar maladaptations may occur due to organizational problems of decision-making units: contraction of the decision-making group, information overflow, 'group-think', internal dissension, and inflexible standard operating procedures, may result in poor quality decisions being made in a crisis situation. Strategic vulnerability, urgency, strategic instability and crisis instability inevitably affect the performance of those responsible for decision-making. Thus, an inherently bad situation automatically worsens rather than progresses decision-making. The rules governing the use of force as a 'continuation of policy by other means', as employed by the powers for conveying signals, are utterly fragile and prone to misunderstanding, especially between opponents committed to systems of different ideological orientation. It may therefore be difficult to avoid fatal miscalculations regarding the use of nuclear weapons. Crisis bargaining entails the risk of events getting out of control due to the 'logic of events', military necessity, low-level actions taken by subordinate commanders and organizational routine and confusion due to the malfunctioning of command, control and communications systems. The trend towards global militarization and poorly defined, ambiguous commitments in the Third World fosters the inclination to use force in crisis bargaining. The risks inherent in this trend are enhanced by a network of strategic interdependence which makes the success of efforts to localize crises doubtful. Hence there is a risk of unintentional escalation (both geographically and militarily) of international crises.