British Chief: The character of warfare has changed.

British chief of the defense staff, Nick Carter, said that there is a greater risk of an accidental war breaking out between the West and Russia than at any time since the Cold War, with many of the traditional diplomatic tools no longer available.

He told Times Radio that there was a greater risk of tensions in the new era of a "multipolar world," where governments compete for different objectives and agendas.

"I think we have to be careful that people don't end up allowing the bellicose nature of some of our politics to end up in a position where escalation leads to miscalculation," he stated in an interview that is yet to be published.

Tensions have been rising in eastern Europe, threatening to drag in Russia and NATO after the European Union accused Belarus of flying in thousands of migrants to fabricate a humanitarian crisis on its border with EU-member Poland.

President Vladimir Putin said on Saturday that unannounced NATO drills in the Black Sea presented a major threat to Moscow and that Russia had nothing to do with the issue on Belarus' NATO border.

Carter stated that parties were willing to use any tool at their disposal, such as migrants, surging gas prices, proxy forces, or cyber-attacks. "The character of warfare has changed," he said.

Diplomats now face a more complex multipolar world, he said, adding that "traditional diplomatic tools and mechanisms" of the Cold War were no longer available.

"Without those tools and mechanisms there is a greater risk that these escalations or this escalation could lead to miscalculation," he said. "So I think that's the real challenge we have to be confronted with."