My latest piece over at DIPLOMAT magazine looks at the policy and practice of ‘international interventions’ (or not):

‘The more precisely the position [of an electron] is determined, the less precisely the momentum is known, and conversely’.

This, as all clever Diplomat readers will know, is the classic formulation by Werner Heisenberg in 1927 of his famous ‘uncertainty principle’. By extension he argued that it was impossible to conduct an experiment on something without changing that very something in the process. A revolution in human thinking: objective scientific detachment was neither as objective nor as detached as we had supposed.

This same scientific philosophy can, of course, be applied to the world of diplomacy. Especially when it comes to the complex issue of ‘interventions’ – moves by one state designed to impact directly on the affairs of another state, often without the formal consent of that state itself.

Interventions  make changes – that’s the point of them. But however clever and calculated an intervention, the changes it triggers immediately – and then in the years and decades to come – are necessarily unforeseeable and not always good.

Politicians like the idea of showing voters results which are quick, predicted and positive. What if they instead get outcomes which are slow, unpredicted and negative?

And this:

If anything, the Gaddafi and Mubarak (and earlier Milosevic) case studies reinforce the worst instincts of the worst dictators: make clear from the start of any local unrest that you’ll do what it takes to stay in power.

Under current management, Western governments may talk tough – but  that is negotiable. They may even blow up some of your loyalists if your methods are a bit too, ahem, blatant. But they are unlikely to come after you personally, as they’re squeamish – they have lawyers absurdly poring over their kinetic military actions to ensure that your human rights are not violated. Pshaw!

In other words, if you are a ‘bad leader’ and if (as is likely) your willingness to withstand pain and to dish out pain to your own local adversaries is greater than the international community’s willingness to inflict pain on you, hey presto – you can expect to stay in business indefinitely. Maybe too a perverse reputation boost among the progressive global chattering classes for your heroic anti-imperialist defiance…

That seems to describe quite well what the Syria leadership is doing.

All in all, the whole intervention business is a conceptual and moral mess.

When it comes to ‘protecting future generations’ from the supposed consequences of climate change prompted by human activity, the world tries quite hard to come up with shared active policies (especially if Western countries foot the bill).

When it comes to protecting people now living from organised violence inflicted by their own leaders, it all gets very difficult (especially if Western countries foot the bill).

Some causes are fashionable, others not.

Yup, that’s the heart of it.