ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how the changes in the frequency, pattern and forms of war are reflected in the modern conflict termination process. The proposed conflict model has two major dimensions, one strategic and the other rational. It is strategic because it relates to identifying national interests, setting national objectives, and deciding issues of peace and war. The output of the systems model is some type of resolution of the political issue that caused the conflict. The major component of the strategic-rational model considers how the strategic environment acts upon the policymaker and strategist to cause them to consider the use of force to resolve some domestic or international political dispute. A rational decisionmaker might decide to end the war if the cost of the war exceeded the value that he attached to the political interest in dispute. Advancing technology, particularly the fusion of the thermonuclear warhead to the supersonic intercontinental ballistic missile, however, has made certain forms of war dysfunctional.
