Don't call war 'WAR' until it's called so

By now, we know better than to call every cessation of fire 'ceasefire'. Many of them can jolly well turn out to be 'stoppage of firing', which we are reliably told is vastly different from 'ceasefire'. But in the great book of euphemisms, 'war' has a special place. When is it correct - never mind polite - to call war 'war'?

In modern public international law - where sophisticated phrasing holds the key - a declaration of war entails recognition among countries of a state of hostilities between these countries. This is to regulate the 'conduct between the military engagements between the forces of the respective countries'.

Without this gentlemen's agreement, scraps and blow-ups - no matter the number of casualties and the quantum of 'boom-boom' - are 'conflicts', 'operations', 'escalations', 'exercises' or, our personal favourite, 'kinetic action'.


And if a conflict - no matter how deadly - happens in a place the world ignores, it's unlikely to graduate beyond 'regional unrest'. So, it may look like a war, swim like a war, and quack like a war. But all that doesn't mean it is a war.

War is war when someone influential finally admits it, ideally on X. Until then, it's a word war. Territories are not lost; borders are realigned. Nothing is destroyed; threats are neutralised. No one ever invades; they merely reestablish security.