In the final years of the Second World War and the armistice period, British foreign policy was truly global in extent and one of the active formative elements in the emerging postwar order. Despite the constraints imposed on it by the rising strength of its two wartime Allies, the United States and the Soviet Union, and economic decline, Britain's wartime performance and its traditional role in diplomacy determined its continuing significance in world affairs. The study of Britain's involvement with a small power on the border of core British interest provides an interesting perspective into the process of readjustment to the new postwar realities; it illuminates Britain's long-term priorities and the principles underlying its international conduct.

As British postwar planning for Bulgaria started in earnest in the latter half of the war, it was interlinked with military objectives regarding the country and the surrounding area. It had to take into consideration the concurrent disposition of armed forces and the prospects of cooperation with local political actors. Further, British policy makers drew heavily on experiences from the interwar period, projecting past developments onto future models of relations. The external resemblance between Britain's attitudes and approaches to Bulgaria before and after the war was underpinned by the essentially stable nature of Britain's strategic and political interests in the region.