From whence come wars and conflicts among you?

Do they not arise out of your own passions? --James 4:1,2

That's a tremendously helpful verse because it bridges an individual's world of his own personal life and the social world, extending even to communities, and beyond, to states and nations in the world. The claim of that verse is simply that conflict and strife with neighbors, friends, relatives or nations arises out of human passions---anger and feelings of attack or injustice. The same forces produce world conflicts as well. Wars and strife between individuals or nations spring from the same source. It always appears to be naive for various groups to suggest that we eliminate strife on the social level when the very people who seek to do so haven't succeeded in eliminating conflicts in their own lives. People who mount protests and demonstrations to eliminate war oftentimes have terrible conflicts in their own homes! They haven't solved the problem there, even.

Taken from TEN PROPOSITIONS CONCERNING WAR by Ray C. Stedman