On this third LP the foursome from Dublin – Ireland was officially neutral in the conflict in Northern Ireland, but there was a very broad movement in the country that wanted the brothers from the north to come 'home' - passionately expressed their opinion about the political situation and people in general with songs like Sunday Bloody Sunday. The armed struggle lasted for various decades, from the 1960s well into the 1990s, at the cost of roughly 3,500 lives. Between the resistance movement IRA on the one side and the Protestant minority and the British army, that had to keep the country within the United Kingdom, on the other. The band members from Dublin grew up with a civil war on their borders, in Northern Ireland. War can also be a mental thing, an emotional thing between loves. The idea came from singer Bono: “Instead of putting tanks and guns on the cover, we've put a child's face. Instead of the innocence of the photo from debut album “Boy”, Peter has an angry expression and a bloody lip on this particular cover, very much befitting its title. Besides “Three” he is depicted on the cover of “Boy”, U2's first LP, and on this third, “War”. The ‘sweet’ investment resulted in a lasting image of the child with the precocious eyes and the unusually strong gaze.
The boy on the cover, Peter Rowen, did indeed receive a box of Mars bars from U2, but that was for the picture on the cover of debut EP “Three”. “Everyone thinks we paid him with a box of Mars chocolate bars,” U2 bassist Adam Clayton once said of the album cover for “War”.