There are no easy answers to Europe’s migration crisis. Perhaps that fact alone – the reality that all options are insufficient – could be the basis to build a consensus out of the bitter divisions that now grip the continent. The answer to the crisis in the longer term will depend less on migration policy and much more on smarter ways to avoid such crises in the first place.

Those brave politicians who welcome the refugees, like German chancellor Angela Merkel, take a stand of basic human decency. People are fleeing for their lives from terror and war. To deny them asylum would violate the most basic standards of compassion. For you were strangers in a strange land, God reminds the Israelites in setting forth the principles of social justice.

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Those favouring asylum are also in fact pragmatic. The international law of refugees (including the 1951 refugee convention) bars the forced return of refugees to their homeland. The European court of human rights has long upheld this principle. And with all the walls, and border patrols, Europe is no island. Nor for that matter is the US. Trying to forcibly stop the migrant influx into Europe would fail.

Yet those who oppose the refugees have their own valid points. It is true, and not simply cruel, to point out that the flow of refugees reflects the massive and repeated failures of western foreign policies. The US in particular has repeatedly used military force to try to impose its preferred regimes in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and beyond. This regime-change policy lies in tatters and more than 10 million displaced people are the consequence.

It is also sensible, and not merely cruel, to demand from the politicians a longer term strategy. Accepting a one-time influx of refugees is compassionate. Asserting that Europe’s door is open to migrants and refugees without limit is reckless, not compassionate. No high-income society can throw its doors open to all interested comers: the press of humanity to Europe (or the US) would be essentially unlimited. Gradual migration is important and replenishes our societies; wide-open doors are unfeasible and unmanageable.

In the 19th century migrants to the US came with nothing and expected little from the state when they arrived. There were no social transfers; no public healthcare; no guaranteed housing. And only a modest gap between the incomes they were leaving behind and those they would find upon arrival. They came poor but they did not create an underclass, just another addition to the poor they found on arrival.

Today, the migrants are leaving societies with incomes a fifth or a tenth of those of their target destinations in Europe and the US. An economist might say open the borders but withhold the social payments that currently attract the numbers, thereby reducing the flow. Yet the refugee sceptics know better. They don’t want to create a new, large and persistent underclass within their own societies. Even without social benefit the numbers would be huge; and the populations on arrival would create new subgroups of penury and social dislocation. The sceptics judge rightly that this is a realistic risk. Nor are the new host countries able to commit large social transfers to an unending, and essentially unlimited, number of new arrivals. Withholding benefits would lead to a new underclass; paying benefits would lead to a fiscal crisis.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘The right wing is cruel to reject the humanity of those whose lives depend on our succour.’ Photograph: Nikolay Doychinov/AFP/Getty Images

There is, in short, no good answer. Such an honest reflection could, by itself, help our societies think more clearly about the least bad options. The first implication, in my view, is to accept the humanitarian responsibility of taking in the refugees while simultaneously moving to end the Syrian bloodbath. This can be done if the US and its allies (Saudi Arabia and Turkey) stop trying to overthrow President Assad; and if the US, its allies, and Russia and Iran – with the support of the UN security council – back a joint action against Islamic State.

Once peace is restored, most of today’s refugees should return home; and would do so if there were a viable future. In our madness – for what else is it? – the US and its allies spend trillions of dollars on useless wars but then typically balk at funds to rebuild homes, schools, clinics and the rest. The irony is that Europe’s aid budgets are being swallowed in caring for refugees on European soil, when that money should be used to build stable economic futures in the source countries.

The second step for Europe and the US is to finance the investments needed for a viable life in the fragile regions of Africa, the Middle East and Asia that otherwise will be unremitting sources of mass migration. Europe and the US increasingly reject foreign assistance because, they claim, budgets are tight. Yet how foolish it is to believe that cuts in foreign assistance will be real savings in the long term. If conditions abroad are unviable, the wars, migrations and environmental catastrophes driving today’s crisis will continue to be replicated and expanded.

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A serious agreement on climate change is also an insurance policy against future mass migration. We know well that the Syrian disaster had some of its roots in the mega-droughts of the last decade. Many more environmental refugees are sure to follow a business-as-usual trajectory of global warming. The climate negotiations in Paris are therefore a key piece of the puzzle.

The right wing is cruel to reject the humanity of those whose lives depend on our succour. Yet the pro-refugee politicians will not win the day if they fail to address the deeper causes of the crisis. Accepting the refugees today has to be accompanied by a rapid end to the Syrian war; an end to the US-led wars of regime change; more cooperation in the UN security council; and long-term investments in sustainable development. The flood of refugees will abate to a manageable level only when people everywhere, including in poor and unstable regions, see a safe future for themselves and their children in their home countries.