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Today’s global situation serves as a reminder that conflict and war, ranging from tribal fights to international hostilities, are seemingly inescapable social facts woven throughout the course of human history. In all their shapes and forms, conflict and war have an existential impact on society, as both individual and collective existence are at stake (Grimell, 2025). The cost of survival can be extremely high and often leaves long[1]lasting effects, pointing to the depth of actual and potential wounds—from the individual to the societal levels.

The contributions to this Research Topic reflect a wide geographical range, underscoring that the societal and individual costs of war unfold across cultures and nations. The articles are authored by scholars based in, and engage empirically or analytically with, a diverse set of regional contexts, including the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Italy, Germany, Austria, the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland/Ireland, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ukraine, Israel, Australia, and the United States. Taken together, this breadth reinforces the opening assertion that conflict and war are woven throughout human history, while highlighting their enduring and transnational impact across contemporary societies.

Conflict and war inflict both visible and invisible wounds that can negatively affect an individual’s health and wellbeing. From our combined research and professional experiences, clinically diagnosable conditions and non-clinical/non-diagnosable illnesses or conditions typically co-exist, with direct consequences to the individual and unintended consequences to their family and their broader community. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) may be regarded as a prototypical psychiatric and clinical diagnosis. Its precursors became visible in various forms during the First and Second World Wars, and the diagnosis was later formally codified in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) in the 1980s. More recent hypothesized constructs have since emerged. Constructs such as moral injury encompass experiences grounded in a distinct etiology and possibly also in specific neurobiological processes.