Not the Best But Better Than Nothing: Political Intervention Through the Lens of Addiction Intervention

Influenced by my observation of interventions on an alcoholic family member, I believe that political interventions (like addiction interventions) will never be fully effective but that they are still an improvement on doing nothing.  Both addiction interventions and political interventions are acclaimed as a way for one party, who allegedly knows better than another, to stop harm from occurring.

                One of the biggest arguments against political intervention is that it will not fix the problem, that it is a bandaid measure whose effectiveness disappears as soon as the interveners leave.  I do not argue this point; in the class discussion about intervention in Syria, I even said that I did not think it would have been possible to fix through intervention the humanitarian offenses occurring there. The same argument is levied against addiction intervention.  When my family member went through his intervention, he felt enough pressure from everyone around him that he entered rehab.  Once he finished the requisite cycle, however, our family left him alone, thinking he had changed.  However, as we discovered eventually, the change was only temporary; it was dependent on the constant presence of people around him who would enforce his sobriety.  As soon as that presence was gone, he started drinking again.  He had never internalized the message of the intervention, which was that he had a problem - because he didn’t believe he had a problem, he didn’t think he needed to change. 

In the same way, political interventions will always have only temporary success.  Political interventions, like Syria and Iraq, are military, so they are a show of force, an invasion of another’s space to bring about change through intimidation.  Intimidation and coercion only affect actions; they cannot change people’s hearts or minds (this goes back to the effects of hard power versus soft power).  These tactics are effective as long as that force is actively applied.  When the pressure is removed, however, the wound of injustice bleeds profusely again.  Political interventions, by their coercive nature, simply cannot be counted on to make people or nations believe that there is a problem, and therefore will not bring about lasting change. 

Nevertheless, the alternative is to do nothing and this is even worse.  The argument goes that intervention should not be pursued precisely because people cannot be helped until they want to be helped and that no force or intimidation can make them want anything.  We were advised on a few occasions to do nothing and wait for the addict in our family to hit rock bottom to let him realize for himself that he needed help.  The same advice could be, and often is given to potential political interveners.  Some might say: wait, let the injustice and violence get so bad that the nation cannot ignore it.  The problem with this advice is that even hitting rock bottom does not necessarily make an addict - or a nation - realize that there is something that needs to be fixed.  My family member drunk drove and crashed into the bedroom of a house; he was jailed for several months.  Still, he did not acknowledge the need, or express a desire for help.  Likewise, nations may simply keep escalating violence or human rights violations and not ever care about how bad it gets.  The time in rehab that kept my family member sober and kept him from hurting himself and others, and the time of foreign presence that keeps nations on their best behavior are the temporary reprieves from harm that intervention offers, and they are better than nonstop injury.