Conscious of a major conflict close to home (5)
I believe the answer is:
aware
'conscious of' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'a major conflict close to home' is the wordplay.
'major conflict' becomes 'war' (I've seen this before).
'close to' says to take the final letters (the close/ending of).
The final letter of 'home' is 'e'.
'a'+'war'+'e'='AWARE'
(Other definitions for aware that I've seen before include "Knowing (of something)" , "Bearing in mind" , "Cognisant, mindful" , "well informed" , "Informed; conscious" .)