The fringe of the aggressor country, including its sea-coast and its main (not all) sources of water power, coal, and steel, could be severed from the state, and administered as an international territory, never to be returned. Harbours as well as the raw materials could be made accessible to the citizens of the state for their legitimate economic activities, without imposing any economic disadvantages on them, on the condition that they invite international commissions to control the proper use of these facilities. Any use which may help to build up a new war potential is forbidden, and if there is reason for suspicion that the internationalized facilities and raw materials may be so used, their use has at once to be stopped. It then rests with the suspect party to invite and to facilitate a thorough investigation, and to offer satisfactory guarantees for a proper use of its resources.

Three problems with this:
1) This presupposes, in the German post-WWI instance, that the League of Nations would enforce the deal. It would have had to develop its own army, its own supranational bureaucracy to handle the territories… all fraught with problems. The modern UN would find it extremely difficult to pull this off now, I don’t see how the LoN in its first years could have.
2) Who would populate these territories? Wouldn’t it have to be mainly the ethnic mix of the beaten country? Wouldn’t that create a massive disconnection between the prosperous inhabitants of the new Singapore-like mercantile territories and the moribund old country with its bombed-out industrial wasteland? Would there have to be a Berlin-style wall at the border? Sounds like a disaster to me.
3) Doesn’t this sound like one world government paternalism writ large, in airy fairy writing that would not survive in the real world without dissolving into further conflict?

The French bounce right back with generosity, the Germans develop an evil grudge…

The holocaust and the war crimes in the Pacific would have seen me call not only for the execution of their leaders and agents, but the destruction of the countries that gave rise to their rule.

Italy gets out because they surrendered etc.

This example shows that it is not impossible to treat a state harshly and its citizens leniently.

The prejudice that we cannot distinguish between the treatment of a state and of its individual citizens is also very dangerous, for when it comes to the problem of dealing with an aggressor country, it necessarily creates two factions in the victorious countries, viz., the faction of those who demand harsh treatment and those who demand leniency. As a rule, both overlook the possibility of treating a state harshly, and, at the same time, its citizens leniently.

But if this possibility is overlooked, then the following is likely to happen. Immediately after the victory the aggressor state and its citizens will be treated comparatively harshly. But the state, the power-organization, will probably not be treated as harshly as might be reasonable because of a reluctance to treat innocent individuals harshly, that is to say, because the influence of the faction for leniency will make itself felt somehow. In spite of this reluctance, it is likely that individuals will suffer beyond what they deserve. After a short time, therefore, a reaction is likely to occur in the victorious countries. Equalitarian and humanitarian tendencies are likely to strengthen the faction for leniency until the harsh policy is reversed. But this development is not only likely to give the aggressor state a chance for a new aggression; it will also provide it with the weapon of the moral indignation of one who has been wronged, while the victorious countries are likely to become afflicted with the diffidence of those who feel that they may have done wrong.

This very undesirable development must in the end lead to a new aggression. It can be avoided if, and only if, from the start, a clear distinction is made between the aggressor state (and those responsible for its acts) on the one hand, and its citizens on the other hand. Harshness towards the aggressor state, and even the radical destruction of its power apparatus, will not produce this moral reaction of humanitarian feelings in the victorious countries if it is combined with a policy of fairness towards the individual citizens.

But is it possible to break the political power of a state without injuring its citizens indiscriminately? In order to prove that this is possible I shall construct an example of a policy which breaks the political and military power of an aggressor state without violating the interests of its individual citizens.

The fringe of the aggressor country, including its sea-coast and its main (not all) sources of water power, coal, and steel, could be severed from the state, and administered as an international territory, never to be returned. Harbours as well as the raw materials could be made accessible to the citizens of the state for their legitimate economic activities, without imposing any economic disadvantages on them, on the condition that they invite international commissions to control the proper use of these facilities. Any use which may help to build up a new war potential is forbidden, and if there is reason for suspicion that the internationalized facilities and raw materials may be so used, their use has at once to be stopped. It then rests with the suspect party to invite and to facilitate a thorough investigation, and to offer satisfactory guarantees for a proper use of its resources.

Such a procedure would not eliminate the possibility of a new attack but it would force the aggressor state to make its attack on the internationalized territories previous to building up a new war potential. Thus such an attack would be hopeless provided the other countries have retained and developed their war potential. Faced with this situation the former aggressor state would be forced to change its attitude radically, and adopt one of co-operation. It would be forced to invite the international control of its industry and to facilitate the investigation of the international controlling authority (instead of obstructing them) because only such an attitude would guarantee its use of the facilities needed by its industries; and such a development would be likely to take place without any further interference with the internal politics of the state.

The danger that the internationalization of these facilities might be misused for the purpose of exploiting or of humiliating the population of the defeated country can be counter-acted by international legal measures that provide for courts of appeal, etc.

From a massive note to chapter 9 in The Open Society and its Enemies.

the ceasefire and military disengagements must resolve issues rather that just allow the parties to regroup to fight a few years later.

This is not a peace. It is an armistice for 20 years.

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ferdinand_Foch

These are the kind of people who can visit parts of ‘cosmopolitan’ suburbia and think it’s great how so many different kinds of people can congregate in the same marketplace and get along – they just don’t know the 14yo white kid who got beaten up by the islander gang after school last week in that vicinity.

The sorts of things that get discussed here at the Cat and on other blogs such as Bolta’s and TimB’s do not cross the average aussie’s line of sight.

They are just getting on with their lives and it’s too difficult for them to confront. We can call them cowards or ignoramuses, but how do you explain that the nice family down the road subscribe to a belief system that wants you converted or enslaved? The cognitive dissonance is too loud for them.

It’s not saying that that particular family feels that way; just that they prefer to believe that NAMALT.

Plus it’s difficult to counter the indoctrination in schools when you don’t see it yourself. You’re too busy working, too busy worrying about the mortgage and come the weekend the last thing you want to do is engage in a bit of deprogramming.

I’m cutting back on my pc time (good thing, too) so that I can spend more face to face time with my girl, for example. The price is too high for me not to, but then again, on my bookshelves are books by Dr. Miriam Grossman, Lee Harris, Robert Spencer, William Shirer and the ever entertaining Saul Alinsky.

The majority of my friends have never heard of them.