In formulating its foreign policy any country tends to distinguish between areas of central and of peripheral importance, between those areas where it can exert considerable influence and those where it can exert little influence. This is the choice facing small and middling countries like Australia. The great powers have to make similar choices to conserve their resources – political, economic and diplomatic – but are still able to exert considerable or even overwhelming power from time to time in areas which are normally peripheral but which may, because of shifts in the power balance, become less peripheral and more central from the point of view of global policies.