I remember sitting at a symposium in Berlin, listening to foreign policy experts speak about a potential war with Russia. Predictions were flying around the room, some saying a war is likely in the next 5 years, and others even suggesting that we need to prepare for a war with Russia by 2026. I was shocked at the level of nonchalance and fearlessness with which these words were spoken. It sounded like a group of people scheduling a sporting event; calm, almost breezy, delivered without the fear or gravity one would expect when talking about something that could destroy millions of lives.
To me, it felt surreal. In Bosnia, my home country, where war is not history but memory, even mentioning it carries weight. There, the topic is taboo, not because people shy away from reality, but because they understand its cost intimately. On the other side of Europe, that instinct seems to be fading. Across the continent, public discourse increasingly treats war as a manageable scenario, a strategic calculation, or a policy option rather than a catastrophe. The moral and cultural boundaries that once made war unthinkable are eroding, replaced by rhetoric that frames preparation as ordinary and inevitable. If Europeans forget the true cost of war, they risk repeating history’s gravest mistakes. That is why rebuilding the social taboo around war may now be one of the continent’s most urgent responsibilities.
And so, talk of war has crept back into the mainstream. In a 2025 survey covering nine EU countries, over half of respondents said they believe a war with Russia is ˝highly likely˝ in the coming years. Almost the same number stated that they think their country would probably struggle to defend itself in such a conflict. Yet what is more telling is that the fear of unpreparedness has not triggered calls for de-escalation.
This change in mindset is reflected in the numbers. According to a major 2025 poll, 64% of EU citizens now say they are ˝ready˝ for war. Additionally, majorities in France, Germany, Poland, Spain, and the UK support reintroducing mandatory military service. The media reflects the same mood. Headlines such as “the drums of war are beating closer to Europe” repeatedly portray war as a contingency plan. Preparedness is wise, but normalization is something different.
Preparedness is, of course, necessary in an uncertain security environment. States have a responsibility to protect their citizens and deter aggression. Where it becomes dangerous is when it slides into expectation. Military planning can remain untouched; it is in language and imagination where problems lie. Preparedness treats war as a possibility to be prevented; normalization treats it as a future to be managed. Instead of asking how conflict might be avoided, societies begin asking how they should adapt to it. It is precisely that shift that reshapes priorities long before any shot is fired. Over time, war stops appearing as a failure of politics and starts to look like its natural endpoint. This is how restraint erodes: not through recklessness, but repetition.
The danger is not that Europeans are preparing for war, but that they are learning to speak about it without fear. As war becomes an ordinary part of political vocabulary, the psychological barrier that once made war unthinkable begins to crumble. Europe’s peace has never rested solely on military strength. Rather, it was a cultural instinct shaped by memory. There used to exist a shared understanding that war is a last resort and should be avoided at all costs. The erosion of the taboo is itself a warning.
Rebuilding that taboo does not mean denying Europe’s security challenges. It means restoring that moral boundary that forces leaders to exhaust diplomacy completely before considering force. That is precisely the use of taboos: to create guardrails that keep societies from drifting toward their worst impulses. After the world wars, Europeans understood this very well. War was not just undesirable. It was unspeakable. And it is that silence that had political power. It changed how leaders framed crises, how journalists reported on danger, and how citizens envisioned the future.
What makes the change especially dangerous is how war is being discussed. The language surrounding war in Europe is increasingly framed in terms of inevitability: we must be ready, it’s coming, or there is no alternative. This framing subtly transforms war from a political choice into a technical necessity. Once that happens, the democratic debate narrows. The question changes from whether war should be avoided to how quickly societies can adapt to it. Diplomacy becomes framed as naïve, and hesitation as weakness. In other words, war becomes something to be managed.
This is a profound democratic problem. In normally functioning democratic societies, war is supposed to be the most serious collective decision a polity can make, and such a decision is subject to rigorous moral scrutiny and public justification. When war is described as inevitable, that scrutiny is quietly bypassed. Citizens are asked to prepare, not to consent. The space for alternative futures, like de-escalation and sustained diplomacy, shrinks. The reason is that they are simply no longer spoken of seriously. Inevitability starts closing the debate before it begins. When war becomes an assumed future, everything from general policies to budgets and political priorities begins to reorganize around it. Over time, even if dangerous situations escalate, it can feel less like a failure and more of a fulfillment.
History shows that wars are rarely the product of a single reckless decision. More often, they emerge from long periods in which alternatives are slowly crowded out of imagination.
European societies thus must reclaim that historical memory. Countries that have experienced war in recent history understand that avoiding conflict is not a sign of cowardice. It is wisdom earned at a high cost. Europe would do well to listen to them.
If that symposium taught me anything, it was how easily language tends to drift away from reality. In that room, war sounded abstract, manageable, and even predictable. But war is none of those things. It is chaotic, traumatic, and irreversible. If we allow ourselves to speak of it casually, we move closer to accepting it politically. Europe cannot afford that shift after what the continent has been through.
To preserve peace, the continent must relearn a simple truth that countries like Bosnia already know: war must remain unspeakable, because once it becomes imaginable, it becomes possible. Rebuilding the taboo is not an act of fear. It is an act of responsibility.