The purpose of this dissertation is to answer the question of when a leader will abandon a losing effort against a smaller adversary while their state still has the resources to continue to fight. It is grounded in the puzzle of why powerful states continue to fight wars once they no longer have strategic value. Focused on democratic wars of choice, I offer a causal theory that can best explain the difference in the conditions that bring about a decision to exit the conflict and the conditions that drive leaders to muddle through the conflict. Scholars have correctly argued that audience costs, leadership characteristics, fear of punishment, and public opinion all contribute to decisions surrounding the use of force to achieve foreign policy objectives. Only a few of these theories examine war exit. Most that do address exit tend to focus on exit from major conflicts, not regional wars of choice. The major oversight in all this literature is the recognition that the Muddle/Quit decision is linked to an executive’s perception of potential perceived political costs he may have to pay if he becomes the blame catcher for the losing effort. The works that address blame, political costs, and war exit see blame either as something intrinsic to the executive and his position relative to war initiation or as something applied to the leader ex post facto after the loss. In these theories, blame is fixed on an individual and that executive is doomed to pay high costs for a perceived loss, regardless of actions. While these theories help explain some aspects of choice in war termination, they fail to provide a holistic answer to the question, “When do states quit or when do states muddle?” I offer that the top leader can manage these costs through an ability to shift blame. In this theory of blame-shifting, I show that war exit from costly, protracted, and asymmetrical wars occurs only when strategic priorities have changed and when an executive can find a sufficient outside source to place the blame for war failure. The two primary mechanisms for blame shifting are a domestic political opponent (often the legislature) or an international ally’s behavior or performance. When an executive can show that actions by a domestic political opponent increase the costs of the war, the opportunity exists to shift blame to the legislature. Similarly, if an ally makes choices counter to the successful conduct of the conflict (international pressure, funding restrictions, material support), or if the ally performs in an unsatisfactory manner, the executive may shift the blame to international non-support. Whether a state will quit or muddle in a costly, protracted war with little strategic value can be predicted. While audience costs, political costs, outside influences and leader characteristics inform the story, none alone can successfully predict if an executive will muddle or quit. The theory of blame shifting provides a theory that demonstrates an executive will abandon a costly protracted war of choice when it is no longer strategically meaningful to his state, and when he can shift the blame for war termination, thus significantly reducing the probability of perceived political costs.