When a long term business partnership becomes unattractive for one side, the lack of win-win degrades the relationship for both parties. It causes conflict bet

When a long term business partnership becomes unattractive for one side, the lack of win-win degrades the relationship for both parties. It causes conflict between mutually valid but now competing priorities (profitability vs. contracted deliverables), demoralization, delays for analysis and consensus building around unpleasant decisions, key people moving on to better contexts, etc. I am not talking about bad faith. The primal cause could be failure by one party. But it could also be a market change, critical supplier loss, or other unrecognized reality surfacing. If Boeing and NASA cut losses on Starliner, they could still work together in the future. Presumably, with both sides doing a better job of understanding their respective and joint risks. -- Never mistake a good partnership contract, with a good partnership. More than a good contract has to come together for the latter. And it is wise to have pre-settled terms for unwinding contracts at any time by either parties discretion, to reduce the time to correct a bad situation, and minimize the costs of mishaps and distractions for everyone.