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When, how, and why do states extricate themselves from a military intervention? The subject of exit strategies has been much debated and discussed with regard to contemporary military intervention, in particular the US-led intervention in Iraq, but barely addressed in the scholarly literature on military intervention. That literature has devoted much more attention to the causes and outcomes of interventions than to the issue of withdrawal from interventions. This paper identifies the major challenges and considerations that go into formulating an exit strategy from a military intervention. The first section of the paper considers the various components of an exit strategy. What does it mean to have an exit strategy? More specifically, I address questions involving the pacing and sequencing of an exit strategy. Second, the paper delineates many of the trade-offs involved in formulating an exit strategy. What are the benefits of stipulating a precise deadline for withdrawal versus having a deadline conditional on certain goals being accomplished? Finally, I begin to explore empirical evidence from a series of historical cases of military intervention. I conclude by examining the implications that variation in exit strategies might have for the legacy of an intervention, both for the intervening state and the state in which the intervention took place. The paper promises both a theoretical contribution to the literature on military intervention and a contribution to contemporary policy debates over the direction of military interventions in Iraq and elsewhere. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]