The dynamics of such conflicts were fuelled by memories of injustices, often myths. Wilkinson gave a case study on the rise of the KLA in Albania pointing out that there were numerous occasions prior to the outbreak of conflict when it could have been avoided. Diplomatic costs are miniscule compared to the cost of warfare. He stressed the need for long-term measures to prevent incitement to ethnic hatred especially the strengthening of democratisation. He examined the dynamics of persecution, extermination and genocide by looking at the psychopathology of paranoia where delusions of persecution and grandiosity take over the mind.
Some people have a pervasive mistrust that leads to a malevolent character.
The delusional system leads to everything making a negative sense to the paranoid mind such that everything is distorted into an element of a plot against oneself. Such persecutory and grandiose aspects lend themselves most readily to politics. Paranoids have enemies who have to be destroyed which can lead them to exterminatory behaviour. The fundamental psychological process involved in paranoia is projection. Goodrick-Clarke went on to examine how paranoia extended itself into the external dynamics of ethnic conflict, focusing on conspiracy theories.