wrote:

The use of the phonetic alphabet was designed to reduce the chance of
confusion when communications were poor.

Not only. It was also designed in a way that people of all languages
would understand it without confusion as well as be able to pronounce it
correctly. Have you ever tried to distinguish all the consonants the
Arabic language offers? Have you ever tried to distinguish all the
different emphasises and melodies some asiatic languages use? You'd be
surprised: Without a thorough training, they all will sound the same for
you, yet for native speakers they are very different. The same works
vice versa: What sounds different for you doesn't necessairily do so for
speakers of other languages. So creating a phonetic alphabet which works
worldwide is very much more involved than it would seem.

Stefan