Abstract
This article re-examines the first Kashmir war between India and Pakistan on the basis of previously unavailable secret documents from the headquarters of the Pakistan Army to explain the thinking behind the initial tribal incursion into Kashmir and the subsequent prosecution of the conflict between the Pakistan and Indian armies. It then analyzes the effects of this war on the officers involved and its contribution to the emergence of a praetorian tradition in Pakistani politics, as evidenced in the attempted coup d’état of 1951.