Aggressive war is currently forbidden by the Charter of the United Nations, as well as by customary international law, and it even constitutes a crime against peace. The legal proscription of war forms the bedrock of the contemporary international legal system. Admittedly, to date, the prohibition has not had a profound impact on the actual conduct of States. As of now, its imprint has been more noticeable in the vocabulary of States. An international climate has been generated in which the term ‘war’ has an unsavoury connotation. Hence, while States continue to wage war, they prefer taking the moral high ground and describe their activities in palatable euphemisms. One may say, in a combination of cynicism and realism, that so far the legal abolition of war has stamped out not wars but declarations of war. This lip-service to the cause of peace may be hypocritical. However, as pithily put by La Rochefoucauld, ‘l'hypocrisie est un hommage que le vice rend à la vertu’. The recognition of virtue is an indispensable first step without which no vice is likely to be eliminated.

Nevertheless, a taboo on the use of the word ‘war’ in legal analysis makes no sense at all. The fact that war is banished linguistically will not make it vanish empirically. Whether we employ this or that phrase does not alter the incontrovertible truth that comprehensive armed conflicts still permeate international relations. If the phenomenon of war is to be eradicated, it must be faced and not ignored.