The return to great power conflict has led to a recent shift in focus for the joint force back to large-scale combat operations. As such, professional military education and joint exercises have focused on overcoming the immense challenges of deploying a force to Europe to counter Russian aggression since their seizure of Crimea in 2014. While strategists concern themselves with developing a flexible deterrent for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the joint force focuses on winning the "next first battle." However, there is worryingly little discussion of how we might terminate a conflict with Russia once one is started. Imagining war termination is a difficult topic as it inevitably involves hypothetical scenarios. However, this monograph argues that international relations theory provides a framework to consider war termination. Specifically, the bargaining model of war provides the variables of credible commitment, information gaps, and vital interests of identity as reasons why countries escalate disputes to military conflict as a form of bargaining over political goods. This monograph argues if these variables form a cause for war, so too will the easing of these variables lead to its termination. Additionally, this monograph blends broad international relations theory with Russia's unique strategic culture, finding that Russia's identity formation interacts with the bargaining model's variables. This blended model is evaluated through two case studies, the Russo-Japanese War in 1904-05 and the Sino-Soviet border clashes in 1969. The resulting discussion provides a pathway to address current gaps in joint doctrine's operational design elements of termination and military end states.

Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited. The opinions and conclusions expressed herein are those of the student-authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College or any other governmental agency. (References to these studies should include the foregoing statement.)