What is the organizational perspective on conflict?
“I argue in Organizations at War that civilizations do not clash, ethnic and religious groups do not fight, and ideologies are not in conflict. Only organizations, including states, engage in conflict. They may mobilize support based on ethnic or religious identity, or by promoting a certain ideology, but their motivations and goals are organizational growth and survival. “Much becomes clearer when you start seeing conflicts like civil wars, insurgencies, wars of liberation and revolutions from a unifying organizational perspective. In Afghanistan, for example, it becomes obvious why ideological allies were trying to undermine each other more than their ideological nemeses, why the Islamist Hekmatyar’s rhetoric became more ethnically-focused during the Afghan civil war that followed the collapse of the regime, etc…” How did you arrive at (and develop) the insight that it is organizations that matter in conflict? “While doing relief work, I noticed that the relationship between field co
