Informed about a conflict beginning to escalate (5)
I believe the answer is:
aware
'informed' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'a conflict beginning to escalate' is the wordplay.
'conflict' becomes 'war' (war is a kind of conflict).
'beginning to' indicates taking the first letters.
The first letter of 'escalate' is 'e'.
'a'+'war'+'e'='AWARE'
'about' is the link.
(Other definitions for aware that I've seen before include "fly" , "Conscious, knowing about" , "Having knowledge (of fact)" , "Conscious, sentient" , "Cognisant, mindful" .)