Whose Most to Blame About What Happened?

I want to talk about the end with the subjective question - whose most to blame? CSAT, FIA, AAF, NATO, or everyone? I want to discuss everyone's answers, and what their perspective is on their answer. I'll take a moment to explain my answer below, and why I thought the question itself was not a very good one.

At first glance one might say: The answer is obvious! Clearly everyone is the answer if you paid attention. Its true from a certain point of view, and I think that's my problem. Yes. It takes two to tango, and it takes everyone involved to start a war, but are we really going to boil this down to such a bland, non-committal answer as everyone is at fault? The question of blame is so loaded because it depends on perspective - CSAT started the conflict. That much is clear, using other nations as a proxy to wage war is nothing we aren't aware of. Russia, the US, the UK, and pretty much every other major nation have engaged in this tactic, some more recently than others. By all rights, if you want to assign a blame on a grand scale, the fault would lay in the lap of CSAT. But what about NATO? They exacerbated the situation by invading. In my view this isn't something NATO chose to do. War is a chess game, but one that you cannot refuse to play. Once CSAT made a move, NATO had to retaliate. If we substitute the Geo-political landscape of the modern world over the events, for NATO to retain any authority when it comes to its peace-keeping objectives, the moment it kicked off they had to make good on their promises. I don't feel that blame can justifiably be seated upon a force that for many complex reasons has ostensibly no choice in the matter.

Then we have the AAF and the FIA. Starting with the AAF, they're an oppressive military force, but this is absolutely no stranger to the world. More important, before CSAT interference the cease fire was working, and we see that in Operation Magnitude itself. Do we blame the tinder, or the man who lit it with the match? For the FIA - they are only fighting to protect their home and their way of life. They aren't trained. They aren't versed in any morality, or "rules of war." This is their home. Can we really expect anyone, from any nation to behave differently in this situation? If no one can be held to a better standard, can we really justifiably blame them for acting out of desperation? I don't think so.

But here is my real problem - the question. I would argue the answer is "CAST," but I think the objective of the war was to push you into the direction of "everyone," and to consider that all soldiers in war have blood on their hands. I object to this answer, and the question itself, because I think it undermines the very purpose of the considering the horrors of war. Saying everyone is to blame is the same as saying no one is to blame. It encourages the disconnected, sterile thinking of pseudo "critical thinking," where the only right answer is there is no right answer. When we simply cast everyone in the same paint, it means we no longer have to consider the difficult minutia that make these questions so difficult. We simply say, "war is bad and anyone who fights it shouldn't." On top of that there is no possible way you could answer it with the limited choices - it isn't an analogue "A, B, or C" question. I think the end would have been much more neutral if it simply posed the question, because I think giving the limited choices ultimately lessened the impact of what was being sought.

But what do you guys think!?

>CSAT started the conflict

You mean the civil war between the AAF and FIA? The story behind that was basically the government of Altis underwent a coup which led to two factions the AAF being the government supporters and the FIA who were various people who were kicked out of the government or disagreed. They then fought a bloody civil war. The current AAF (2035) came into being due to some Arma history called the Jerusalem cease fire of 2030 where basically the two factions negotiated a ceasefire and a new AAF was formed. However, the AAF were still pretty brutal to the civilians on Altis and Stratis so the FIA kept up their activities. NATO stepped in as a peace keeping force/over sight force with TF Aegis controlling the AAF except they were pretty much in full support of the AAF as can be seen in the Prologue campaign or the various pre-Stratis incident missions where NATO is either training or bailing the AAF out of various situations. NATO was actively fighting the FIA at this point with the AAF. This goes on till around 2034 where things did not get better but only worse. Capitalizing on this opportunity, CSAT steps in and makes their own offers to the AAF which the AAF start seriously considering. The AAF then decline to renewal TF Aegis and NATO's peace keeping role on Altis and Stratis for 2035 which was the start of the East Wind campaign as can be seen by the decommissioning of all NATO bases on Stratis. NATO was already kicked off of Altis at this point. So no, CSAT did not start the civil war.

Nor did they start the subsequent Stratis incident conflict as Miller and his team was the primary suspect for that. It is heavily implied that Miller not only did something to the AAF to make them think that NATO meant them harm, but also that they might have bombed the NATO forces to trick them into thinking the AAF attacked NATO. I mean use your head, why would the AAF randomly betray NATO when NATO was literally about to leave entirely anyway. So to sum up, pretty much CSAT had no part in starting any conflict on Altis and Stratis. APEX is a different story but for the matters of Remnants of War, CSAT did not start a single thing, only acted in response.

>for NATO to retain any authority when it comes to its peace-keeping objectives

Well so NATO was basically supporting a violent anti-citizen regime that abused human rights. I think that hurt its authority to peace keeping more than anything else.

>More important, before CSAT interference the cease fire was working

Uh are we even in the same reality anymore? Literally everything leading up to the East Wind campaign was the cease fire not working. The East Wind campaign itself is just more of the cease fire not working. Did you miss the part where you as Kerry team up with the FIA to continue fighting the AAF which is literally parts 2 and 3 of the campaign?

For the FIA - they are only fighting to protect their home and their way of life.

Uh did you miss the part where the FIA attack NATO and AAF during Remnants of War to try to steal food and medicine supplies meant for the people of Oreokastro? Or where later on they basically steal everyone's property in order to mount a defense? They literally put the town under a military siege for the purpose of being able to stay there. They could have moved their HQ somewhere else and hidden it in other parts of Altis but they forced everyone not only their supporters to endure this siege and loss of life and property. Yeah the FIA are "freedom fighters" but its not like everyone on Altis agrees with them. They are in some ways like the Taliban of the Arma world. Some view them as freedom fighters others think of them as an oppressive force more interested in their own power than truly being for the people.

They aren't versed in any morality, or "rules of war." This is their home. Can we really expect anyone, from any nation to behave differently in this situation?

Yeah its one thing to not know the rules of war. However, I'm pretty sure its in the handbook of basic human decency not to steal food and medicine meant for regular townsfolk. Or to commander and steal vehicles from the clergy or aid workers. Don't think you need to learn the rules of war in order to be a decent human being.

I think you may have missed the point of the entire DLC. It is not trying to apply some twisted "pseudo critical thinking". It's to make you reflect on the morality of the various actions both in and out of context of what is going on. Saying any one party was the primary culprit is resorting to our basic emotional thinking that there must be a good guy and bad guy. Remnants of War paints a realistic scenario in which all parties make morally gray decisions and shows us the aftermath of those decisions. The point is to hope that we can take away from this campaign lessons that make us rethink what are right or wrong actions in a complicated situation. Just because you feel compelled to take an action in a situation does not mean that the action you are taking is necessarily right. If we want to go back in history and point fingers, that will eventually takes us full circle and several times around again. Instead you should think about how your actions can break this circle of finger pointing in the future. Sometimes breaking that chain requires a heavy cost to ourselves and we need to question if we are able and willing to pay the price of taking the moral high ground.