The stats are supposed to be Contentment ( Civilians ), Safety ( Military / SEPO ) and Trust ( between Allies ). It's super true that they are way too obscure, and we planned to give better feedback on decisions.
Stop always means stopping the action, as in your second assumption, but I can see how it is badly designed especially coupled with the dismiss option that is literally the same thing as waiting.
It turned out to be way too much of a guessing game for sure, but we really struggled with finding ways to incorporate more strategy and to be honest - we tried doing something with a new genre that we haven't tried, but it didn't end up being too fun to make and with it being a Jam entry we were content with how it turned out.
Thanks for the great comment!