Introduction: Can the military be trained to create peace?  It can if you understand its culture according to Mari Fitzduff, the former Executive Director of Irish conflict resolution organization INCORE, and now a professor and the Director of the MA Conflict and Coexistence Programme at Brandeis University.

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Peace and the Military?
Mari Fitzduff
Professor and Director of the MA Conflict and Coexistence Programme at Brandeis University
Interviewed by
Julian Portilla
2003
Also understanding the cultures of organizations. For instance, the army was the easiest. Within a year the army had actually changed the whole criteria for success, which was not how many terrorists you'd shot or how many terrorists you'd put into jail, but how were your relationships with communities developing, because that was in their interest. They would get more information about what needed to be done, etc. Finding ways, we didn't like to tell the provost this, mind you, but finding ways in which you could use their strategic plan and show them how they could do what they wanted to do without increasing their divisions. The culture of the army was such that once they decided to do it, they just put in place a program which says every soldier will now get into trouble if we find that there's trouble at the interfaces, if they're seen as creating riots among the young men, etc., which was a completely different change, and they were actually able to do this. Whereas another culture, like the civil service could take a decade to change.So understanding organizations are different and will take different times to change.

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