Sense a battle over European cape (9)
I believe the answer is:
awareness
'sense' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'a battle over european cape' is the wordplay.
'battle' becomes 'war' (armed conflict).
'over' says to put letters next to each other.
'european' becomes 'e' (abbreviation e.g. EU).
'cape' becomes 'ness' (synonyms).
'a'+'war'+'e'+'ness'='AWARENESS'
(Other definitions for awareness that I've seen before include "Knowing" , "understanding" , "State of being conscious" , "Mindfulness, consciousness" , "Consciousness,knowingness" .)