ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with a historical overview of Australian foreign policy before examining two dominant strands in it: liberal middle power diplomacy and realist alliance diplomacy or 'national interest diplomacy'. It argues that as far as Australian foreign policy elites are concerned Australia's eternal interest is to maintain the US alliance in defiance of Palmerston's axiom. The constant fear of attack or conquest by external and predominantly Asian 'others', coupled with the belief that Australia cannot defend itself has led Australia's policy makers to look to 'great and powerful friends' for reassurance and protection. Australian governments had already viewed payments into the alliance as a form of security insurance, and this rationale continued into the post-Cold War era. Thinking in terms of 'counter-cyclical' aspects of the relationship allows an interpretation of the emphatic shifting between middle power and alliance diplomacy as functional avoidance of the dangers of respective entrapment or abandonment by its powerful ally.
