"peripheral interest" is a correct and usable phrase in written English.
It is typically used to describe something that is considered less important than the main interest. For example, "The primary focus of the project was to reduce poverty, but some of the team also had a peripheral interest in improving infrastructure."
But these, for the most part, are unpersuasive concerns, of minority or peripheral interest.
The F.B.I. also took a peripheral interest in a book club because Lewis was involved with it.
By Tuesday, all this was of only peripheral interest to those people attending the party, who glommed onto anyone with a Sixpoint affiliation to offer their compliments.
His residual 11percentnt stake in Diageo - the combine formed from the GrandMet-Guinness merger - is now of only peripheral interest to LVMH but could still come in handy.
Outside the sports arena, observers came to perceive FIFA as a moneymaking venture with merely a peripheral interest in the welfare of the game itself.
England's win in 2005 was celebrated by the nation, even by those with only a peripheral interest, for England had overcome one of the finest of all teams.
Additionally, military force is also a surprisingly poor tool for shaping the behavior of other countries, except when only their peripheral interests are involved.
Vietnam confused vital and peripheral interests.
Ukraine is at best of peripheral interests to the West, yet actions taken by the West have seriously harmed Russia's core interests.
An inability to differentiate between vital and peripheral interests, and the threats to them, is the first step to overreach and strategic exhaustion, as Eisenhower cautioned, destroying the thing he swore to defend.
If we are mistaken in this impression, we will have to dismiss such ideas as beauty and taste as having only peripheral philosophical interest.
