Is the conflict in Eastern Europe a “special military operation in Ukraine” or a “Russian invasion”? And when it comes to events in the Middle East, are we talking about the “Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” the “War on Gaza” or the “Israel-Hamas war”?
As scholars who study international security, we know that how people refer to a war matters. The name may, for example, signal the speaker’s perspective on who is responsible for the fighting and, therefore, to blame for the death and destruction that follows.
