@phil_a_s

You proposed that it's either

A) Pakistans fault for pressuring Kashmir, or
B) Mountbattens fault for sending them into India, or
C) Indias fault for keeping the damn place

But why *isn't* it
D) None of the above?

If there's and argument to be made against A), and against B), and against C), what happens if you accept all of those arguments?

As for B); Mountbatten advised a temporary union with India on condition of a subsequent plebiscite.

My question, Phil_a_s, is what decisions should have taken place for both sides, especially if one accepts that Kashmir is important for both countries' security.

There is no argument against A, B, or C other than the arguments which state directly that it is one of the others. There is an argument which states it is mostly a consequence of actions A, B and C by entities 1, 2 and 3. Thus, one or more of them are at fault.

We are getting into a sort of cycle here, I think. I think a war can't happen without a cause, and a cause is either enough or not, which defines which sides are right. Overall, there has to be at least one bad cause somewhere, since war is bad.

In theory you could say that since the harm to Britain was minimal, Mountbatten did nothing wrong, since Kashmir is a legitimately Pakistani territory they are right to claim it, and India can't be faulted for retaining their territorial integrity, but that suggests that irresponsibility is not a bad thing.

@Putin
I did say he sent them into India. With the situation as it was, it was one of many questionable options.

I personally think that Pakistan should have called off the militias in favor of international observers for the plebiscite, that India should have negotiated instead of using force whenever possible, and that Mountbatten shouldn't have been in India in the first place.

I repeat my question about what they should have done.

Shouldn't have been in India? What do you mean? As it was he was there very briefly.

"I personally think that Pakistan should have called off the militias in favor of international observers for the plebiscite"

There is reason to believe it was much less a Pakistan-directed affair, since Pakistan did not even control of its own military at the time (and the army was completely disorganized due to partition) and more of a local uprising by tribals.

India, for its part, seeing Kashmir under siege, can't be blamed for using force to defend the Maharaja who asked for their help.

As in, some moron put a mildly unstable member of the aristocracy in a crisis region. Why? Other things he could have done were being friendly with Pakistanis and Indians, or not getting too chummy with either.

I already said what they should have done, but I assume you wrote the first post as a reaction to my first post.

It may not have been Pakistan directed, but supported, yes. It is a shame they did not have much control, but much like the post-war government in the Czech Republic, endorsing instead of opposing militia action can do a fair amount. Ideally, Kashmir would have been covered under a partition plan. It was not, and as such should have been kept as non-Indian or Pakistani as possible until a plebiscite could be organized.

Yes, sorry, I posted that before I read your explanation. Mountbatten seemed to be a perfectly competent officer based on his WWII record, but I don't know much about his biography.

@phil_a_s Thanks for stating this so clearly:

"Overall, there has to be at least one bad cause somewhere, since war is bad."

That's directly relevant to my original post. Is this statement really true?

@tendmote
That is the basic issue. I believe it is, and all my posts have been derived from that assumption. I don't think there is an objective way to measure it compatible with my moral values, so I made it one of them.
@Putin
I read a biography of him, detailing mostly his time as Vice-Roy, which was his most important period. I imagine he would be a perfectly competent officer. He had a lot of positive qualities, but was a bit out of his depth.

I just want to mention one thing that I noticed while reading through this. phil_a_s said this:
"What is it with the French and irresponsible arms sales?"
First of all, there obviously aren't very good statistics on this stuff, but I would estimate that the French aren't exactly leading on the irresponsible deals-terrain. I would guess the USA is, but it might be Russia, who knows.
Second, arms deals with Russia aren't really that bad or irresponsible at all.
Most importantly though, I think that, while many nations certainly take too little effort to do something about it, you can't really blame those irresponsible arms deals on anyone specific. They are pretty inevitable in a predominantly capitalist world I would say.

The French just have much worse history than most. The affaire Karachi was ridiculous. They haven't stepped down from selling naval invasion ships to an aggressive anti-NATO power. They sold Nuclear technology. They might not be leading on it, but they do have an official bureaucracy to deal with selling weapons to dangerous people. The French cause more trouble with arms sales than you'd expect, while the US causes exactly as much as you'd expect.

Now that tendmote has muted me and is busy tending his motes, I can say here with impunity that what is really depressing is not the responses to his thread, but to the fact that he seems to have believed as a given that one side in a war can be right, and the other wrong. I don't know about you, but I watch footage of house to house gunfighting, whoever the combatants are, and all I see is violence. All the best soldiers knew madness and were the victims of their times. What soldier, even for the worthiest of causes, feels wholly justified as he pulls the trigger? What sane man fails to regret killing?

NATO calling anybody else aggressive is laughable.

The US has destabilized most of the world with arms sales. France doesn't even compare.

All the best soldiers knew war was madness*

@Thucy
I agree, but you can see there are wars where the fighting is necessary from one side's point of view, right? WWII was an atrocity, one of the worst mankind has suffered, but caving to Hitler's demands each time he made them wouldn't have gone well.

@Putin
It's not NATO calling Russia aggressive, it's me. NATO was designed to fight the Warsaw pact, headed by Russia. Russia is and always has been NATO's enemy. France is part of NATO and selling ships designed for an invasion to Russia.
I'm not saying the US hasn't caused more damage, although with 16th to 19th century colonialism taken into account, France is at least close. I'm saying that normal people wouldn't expect France to do nearly that much damage.

And how is Russia aggressive when NATO is expanding to Russia's border and arming anti-Russian states to the teeth as well as overthrowing and destabilizing any government remotely friendly to Russia?

I don't doubt I would have done something similar to what Churchill or FDR did, if I were them. Ditto Hitler though. I am not any of them. My point isn't about moral culpability, it's about acceptability. Sending troops to defend a country from a Hitler or annexing part of a neighboring country to shore up your support at home, these things simply happen. I accept that soldiers are sent by powerful men to fight each other, but I do not accept the underlying reason, which is always pride, fear, or greed. Show me a war that was not caused by such things, and I will show you that it was. If the German people had not been afraid of Hitler or proud of him, he would never have risen to power. If Hitler himself had not been overcome by greed and pride, he would never have risen to power. And even more controversially I'm sure, if the English people were not themselves afraid of suffering and death, they would have seen no need to resist Germany with arms, but would pursued non-violent resistance.

But do I *blame* any of those groups for acting as they did? No; we've been over that. Fear is all too human, and very easy to understand. I don't blame anyone for being afraid. I just think it's too bad, because there is nothing to be afraid of.

@Thucy
That has been my point this entire thread - war is bad, war has reasons, reasons have to be bad if they lead to war. War for bad reason is not justified.

@Putin
We had a perfectly nice discussion about India. I will not get involved in a pointless and vitriolic discussion of the Ukraine conflict, thanks.

WWI and WWII are both cases of each side having good reasons to go to war.

What I'm saying is that the reason a war is fought is always bad. It is always caused by something humans can do without.

What were Germany's good reasons for WWII?

I agree with y2kjbk. What were the good reasons? I also agree with Thucy, actually, but I've agreed with him since he posted.

Overthrowing Versailles and getting Germany out from under the restrictive tariffs placed on their trade due to imperial preferences.

Those are ridiculous arguments. That is not a justification for war. Overthrowing Versailles is not a good cause. Getting rid of the tarriffs could have been done differently. Oppressing non-Germans could have not been done at all.

Was Versailles worth 10 million lives? Is anything worth 10 million lives?

I guess "good" is different for everyone.