Soft Balancing the Titans: Venezuelan Foreign‐Policy Strategy Toward the United States, China, and Russia

Abstract

This article analyzes Chavist Venezuela's foreign policy toward three major powers, the United States, China, and Russia. Based on neoclassical, peripheral, and subaltern‐realism theories, it considers the Latin American duality between alignment and autonomy as strategic alternatives, and uses congruence analysis to consider the coherence between Chavism's geopolitical objectives and concrete actions in its foreign policy with the three powers. Venezuela's foreign‐policy strategy consists of three overlapping triads. In Venezuela–U.S.–China relations, Caracas assumes the power‐transition theory, aligning economically with the Asian rising power and serving as a gateway to Latin America. In Venezuela–U.S.–Russia relations, Chavism is politically and militarily aligned with Putin's Russia, taking advantage of the Russian–U.S. geostrategic rivalry. The most‐interesting and novel finding is in Venezuela–China–Russia relations, where the Bolivarian Revolution exploits a favorable economic relationship with China but aligns to Russian geostrategy, conducting a “softer balancing” against China to hold on to the partnership and to autonomy.