No foreign policy is conducted in a void. The words themselves imply a definition of relationship: a foreign policy operates within an international framework which is not itself rigid but subject, from the pressure of change, to constant alteration in form. The period of this volume, 1961–65, was one in which Australia, in response to new challenges, achieved a degree of maturity in both the shaping and the execution of policy. In narrow Australian terms, it opened with events which by 1962 had produced a major diplomatic defeat for Australia in the outcome of the West New Guinea dispute; it was to close with a remarkable Australian diplomatic success in the conduct of relations with Indonesia. The basic objective of policy, the safety of Australia itself, was consolidated and indeed secured for a foreseeable time by the United States relationship. But this was coupled with large uncertainties about the extent and nature of the growing political, military, and economic involvement in South-East Asia, and perhaps Asia generally.