NINE COUNTRIES HOST most of the world’s refugees. None of them is wealthy. All border war zones, from Syria to South Sudan. The simplest way for rich countries to help the poor ones that shoulder the lion’s share of the global refugee burden is through resettlement, the UNHCR’s second “durable solution”: accepting refugees directly from the countries they have fled to. Many countries have had annual resettlement quotas for decades, agreed with and implemented through the UNHCR. America, for example, plans to take in 85,000 refugees this year. But the numbers are nothing like enough to accommodate the most acute refugee emergency: the 5m or so Syrians stranded in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan, not to mention the 7m displaced inside Syria, many of whom could still flee.

That is why some Europeans have sought a new approach: eliminate, or at least drastically reduce, irregular migrant flows, and launch a mass refugee-resettlement scheme instead. It is a beguiling idea: replace chaos with order, destroy the business models of the smugglers who thrive on illegality, and have countries choose refugees rather than the other way around.

Mass resettlement was supposed to play a large part in the controversial agreement struck between the European Union and Turkey on March 18th. The deal committed the Europeans to taking in one Syrian refugee from Turkey for every irregular Syrian sent back from Greece. Larger numbers would be resettled under a separate “voluntary humanitarian admissions” scheme, which could also include Jordan and Lebanon. The more ambitious speak of resettling 250,000 Syrians a year to Europe. If that inspired America and other rich countries to step up their efforts, the burden on Syria’s neighbours might become more manageable and the chaos of irregular migration could be brought under control.

It has been done before. Almost all of the 180,000 Hungarians who fled to Austria after the Soviets suppressed the 1956 uprising were quickly resettled, some as far afield as Nicaragua and New Zealand. But for most the model is the Indochinese “boat-people” crisis that began in the 1970s, which gave rise to perhaps the most successful mass resettlement in history. Millions of refugees scrambled on to boats to flee the communist governments that took over in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia following the American military withdrawal in 1973. When overburdened South-East Asian countries started to turn refugees away, the international community took action. Between 1975 and 1995 about 1.3m Indochinese refugees were moved to rich countries, mainly the United States, Canada and Australia.

Most settled in well. In America, the median household income of immigrants from South-East Asia is now higher than that of people born in the country. Filippo Grandi, the UN’s refugee chief, notes proudly that the refugee co-ordinator who showed him around Illinois on a recent visit was an evacuee from Vietnam. The response to the Indochinese boat people suggests that co-ordinated global action with a big dollop of political will can resolve refugee crises. Could it work for Syrians?

Probably not. The numbers are far larger today, and Syrians are not the only people seeking refuge. America’s generosity towards the boat people sprang in part from a desire to show solidarity with the victims of communist regimes. (The same had been true of the Hungarians.) The West may sympathise with the victims of Bashar al-Assad’s barrel bombs, but sees little geopolitical gain in helping them. Even the Indochinese effort was neither quick nor easy. It involved several false starts and lots of arm-twisting, and took years to complete. And Europe’s political will has been sapped by the chaos of last year’s mass arrivals.

But if Europe cannot muster the will for mass resettlement, the danger is of drift towards an Australian-style solution in which a “hard” rejection policy is unleavened by generosity and neighbours are left to bear the burden. Australia boasts that it has eliminated the unplanned arrival of asylum-seekers by sea. But its politicians’ promises to boost the resettlement of refugees have not been kept: quotas fell from 20,000 in 2012-13 to 13,750 in 2014-15 (although numbers are due to rise again). Campaigners devote their energy to undoing Australia’s offshoring deals with Papua New Guinea and Nauru rather than boosting resettlement numbers. Europe may be moving in this direction: the push for resettlement has got lost in the row over the deal with Turkey.

Chaos into order

If Europe cannot do it, what about the rest of the world? Canada’s programme, described earlier in this report, is generous but pricey, and highly selective: single men are placed at the back of the queue. America is already struggling to meet its pledge to resettle 10,000 Syrians this year. Barack Obama would probably like to take more, but that will be hard in an election year dominated by Trumpian immigration demagoguery. And fears of terrorism have clouded the issue, despite elaborate screening protocols for refugees that can take two years or more. After last November’s attacks in Paris, Republican governors fell over themselves to declare their states closed to refugees.

In other regions the picture is dimmer still. Japan and South Korea, never known for generosity towards refugees, have not agreed to accept any Syrians at all. The same goes for the rich Gulf states, none of which has signed the Refugee Convention. Some, such as Saudi Arabia, host large numbers of Syrians on work visas, but these offer nothing like the protection afforded by refugee status. Brazil is a brighter spot; it has issued humanitarian visas to over 8,000 Syrians under an open-door policy, although barely a quarter of them have made the journey so far, not least because they have to find their own air fares.

With the usual routes apparently blocked, Mr Grandi has tried to expand the criteria for resettlement through “additional pathways”—university scholarships, expanded family reunion and humanitarian visas. Over the next three years the UNHCR hopes to move at least 450,000 Syrian refugees to the West, mainly from Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon. But a recent conference in Geneva failed to attract many new resettlement pledges.

It seems clear that there will be no Indochinese-style mass resettlement solution to Syria’s refugee crisis. That may not be a disaster. Resettlement is in some ways an admission of defeat. Refugees who have been accepted into a third country are less likely to return to their original homes than those who remain where they were first granted asylum. “I’m not a big fan of [resettlement], but what are the alternatives?” asks Mr Grandi. For those in the world’s most “protracted refugee situations”, that is a crucial question.