Imagine yourself as the head of an organization facing some sort of crisis. External pressures are revealing fissures and faults within the organization, thus magnifying the external pressures. There’s a very real concern that the organization could collapse or succumb to the external threat unless something is done to calm the organization and get it focused on the external threat. Maybe you were the boss as the storm gathered. Maybe you were brought in after the organization realized they had a problem.
A society at war is the most obvious example. For example, the Russians were locked in a stalemate with the Germans in World War I and the accumulated costs of war began to reveal the faults within Russian society. Czarist Russia, in times of peace, could provide enough food and enough authority to maintain order. The war sapped the strength of the state such that it could no longer provide enough food and enough authority. In the ensuing crisis, the state broke and eventually collapsed.
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