KYIV, Ukraine—Whether referring to Russian aggression in the east or to the threat of Islamist terrorism in the West, Europe’s political, media, and religious elite are increasingly using the word “war” to describe the Continent’s security challenges.
The day after the July 14 terror attack in Nice, in which a man drove a large truck into a crowd, killing 84, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said France was at war, “both abroad and on our soil.”
“For years, we have lived, fundamentally, with a kind of insouciance, as though war could not catch up with us, as though history was not tragic,” Valls said. “But war is here, and it is different from the ones that we knew in the 20th century.”
Less than two weeks later, Pope Francis echoed Valls’ remarks when he said the “world is at war.”
“The word we hear a lot is insecurity, but the real word is war,” the pope told reporters while commenting on the murder of a Catholic priest in Normandy by two Islamic State terrorists and a string of violent incidents across Germany.
