The problem of inflation has been a major preoccupation of Western governments in the 1970s. Has it affected their foreign policy? More particularly, has U.K. foreign policy been affected by the much faster than average rate of inflation prevalent in Britain?

When a number of economic and political problems co-exist, it is tempting to discern linkages between them and even, perhaps, to see these linkages as inevitable. Such diagnoses are sometimes correct; but as a rule they cannot be relied upon. This is true even when attention is confined to economic issues alone. The connection, for instance, between global inflation and the energy problem in the 1970s is complex and subtle, but not close.