ABSTRACT
The energy crisis has posed a fundamental challenge to the ability and will of the countries of the industrial world to act together in response to common problems. All dimensions of relations—economic, political, and military—among the North Atlantic countries and Japan have been affected by the oil-price increases that have occurred since the October War of 1973. The monetary implications of the energy crisis encompass both the issue of current macroeconomic management and that of structural monetary reform. Insofar as the issue of current macroeconomic management was concerned, a radical reordering of the traditional payments objectives of industrial countries was called for as a result of the raising of oil prices. The North Atlantic countries and Japan like to think of themselves as a loose sort of community, sharing certain interests and purposes that set them off from the rest of the world's countries.
