ABSTRACT
A small, rich country with a medium-sized economy wins, at first by its own unyielding determination and then through the insuperable might of its greater allies, a long and terrible war which it had sought by every means to avoid and whose consequences it had always, rightly, dreaded. It emerges into an uncertain peace dominated from the beginning by quarrels with one of its two major wartime allies, soon seen as a threat to its own safety. It has borrowed from the other ally an increasingly large share of the resources which it has spent on victory and it must now pay them back, as it hopes, on easy terms. It is a country with multiple worldwide commercial and monetary connections on which its wealth depends. These have been severely interrupted and dislocated by the changes generated by the war and it is not certain in what form nor to what extent they can be reconstituted. It has an extensive, but poor, colonial empire, whose future appears likely to be dominated by struggles for political independence. It is the symbolic political centre of a Commonwealth of large independent countries, emancipated from its political control but with which it still has many intimate commercial, sentimental and cultural links. These Commonwealth countries have few strategic or political priorities in common, and like its colonial empire are increasingly enticed by the wealth and grandeur of its more friendly wartime ally, the USA.
