UK foreign interventions as a middling power

By Simon Heffer Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 12/01/2008

It's awfully difficult to be a middling power. If you are a great power - and there are hardly any of those now - you can follow your instincts in international affairs, call the tune and, to a certain extent, manage the consequences: unless you happen to be the Americans in Iraq, of course.
If you are a small power - in other words, if you don't really have any power at all - you will usually find yourself standing on the sidelines watching the bigger boys play, and occasionally get picked to be on their team if it suits their purpose to have you.
But if you are neither big nor small, like Britain - what to do? A country like ours is not so small that it doesn't feel it has some weight to throw around in the world, but not so big that it can throw it with any confidence - except in concert with others.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/01/14/do1401.xml&DCMP=EMC-new_14012008