Chávez has introduced a number of changes in Venezuela’s foreign policy. He converted a cordial relationship with the United States into a spectacle of sustained bickering, and abandoned regional democracy promotion in favor of the exportation of autocratic practices. These shifts have not yielded all of the results that Chávez intended. He remains as dependent on U.S. markets as ever, few Latin American countries have followed his lead in antagonizing the United States, and some moderately leftist governments (Brazil, Uruguay) may have actually drawn closer to Washington in response to Venezuela’s actions. Nevertheless, Chávez’s foreign policy has allowed him to garner some international support, or at least muffle international criticism, among other gains.

Soft-balancing the United States. After 2003, Chávez began systematically opposing the United States through nonmilitary means, a practice known as soft balancing. This policy has included eschewing cooperation on drug interdiction and other such efforts; building alliances with nondemocratic states including Iran, Cuba, Belarus, and Russia; creating obstacles in international forums, for instance by organizing a parallel, anti-U.S. Summit of the Americas in 2005; making counterproposals to undermine U.S. programs, like the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) set up in opposition to the Free Trade Area of the Americas; and generating diplomatic entanglements, for example by promoting the deployment of Russian missiles in either Cuba or Venezuela.

The Organization of American States (OAS) has been an important forum for Chávez’s soft-balancing activity, particularly after the body, along with the European Union, issued a stern criticism of the state and the ruling party for irregularities during Venezuela’s electoral period in 2005. Chávez’s strategy at the OAS has been to block almost any initiative advocated by the United States or any other state in favor of democracy and human rights promotion. He has publicly condemned the secretary-general, José Miguel Insulza, especially after his criticism of the RCTV affair. At one point, Chávez used a vulgar pejorative, calling Insulza a pendejo. By frequently threatening to withdraw from the OAS—which the delegates would consider an unacceptable diplomatic catastrophe—Chávez seems to have secured the deference of the body.

The Venezuelan regime’s policy of soft-balancing the United States is likely aimed at earning the sympathy of an important constituency: radical progressives at home and abroad, who are sometimes so impressed by this strident anti-Americanism on the world stage that they are willing to forgive the shortcomings of Chávez’s domestic achievements. The policy may also be designed—like the Cuban model—to elicit more aggressive behavior by the United States, which would provide the regime with an external threat to justify domestic crackdowns on dissent. The U.S. government has for the most part avoided this trap, but Chávez has freely posited conspiracies to fill the vacuum.

Soft-balancing Saudi Arabia. Declining production and the need to maintain his fiscal profligacy has compelled Chávez to pursue a strategy of maximizing the price of oil on world markets. This means countering Saudi Arabia’s policy of preserving a stable and affordable price, and the struggle between the two often plays out within the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). Venezuela, the fifth-largest oil producer in the body, has consequently discovered the benefits of an alliance with Iran, the second-largest producer. Bolstered by cooperation on trade and weapons development, the bilateral partnership forms a powerful check on Saudi Arabia’s price-management efforts.

A “humanitarian” rogue state. Since Chávez came to power, Venezuela’s policies in Latin America and the Caribbean have shifted from democracy promotion and minimum intervention toward direct interference in favor of receptive political factions. This has led to complicated relations with most governments in the region. On the one hand, Chávez takes actions that irritate many Latin American leaders. He involves himself in their elections, openly derides their foreign policy decisions, issues personal attacks against elected officials, stockpiles weapons, and expects other countries to join in his provocation of the United States. Venezuela under Chávez is, in short, the closest thing to a rogue state in the region since Cuba’s period of aggressive interventionism between 1961 and 1989.

On the other hand, Chávez has managed to compensate for these vexing practices by launching a massive “foreign aid” program. Every treaty Chávez signs seems to include an obligatory mention of development goals. Gustavo Coronel estimates that Chávez has made a total of $43 billion in “commitments” abroad since 1999. Of this sum, perhaps $17 billion, 40 percent, could be classified as social investments or foreign aid. It encompasses a diverse portfolio of projects, including oil subsidies to Cuba; cash donations to Bolivia, often used to build hospitals; medical equipment donations to Nicaragua; heating oil subsidies to more than a million U.S. consumers; and $20 million in development assistance to Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas, for investments in education, health care, housing, and other basic necessities. Some estimates suggest that the total value of these offerings or promises is as large in real terms as the Marshall Plan, the U.S. aid initiative to reconstruct Europe after World War II. The Petrocaribe oil program alone, which represents an annual subsidy of $1.7 billion, puts Venezuelan aid on par with that of donor countries like Australia, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Portugal, Spain, and Switzerland.

However, much of this aid from Caracas consists of blank checks for the recipient governments to spend at will. In effect, Chávez has been exporting corruption, and the product is attractive to leaders who would rather avoid the constraints imposed by international institutions, democratic donors, and private investors.

Using social spending as a foreign policy tool has allowed Chávez to win two types of international allies: other states, which are loath to cross him if they benefit from his largesse, and intellectuals on the left, especially in Europe, who feel that the aid empowers the poor more than elites. Behind this shield of open or tacit international supporters, the regime is able to pursue its more belligerent and antidemocratic policies with minimal criticism.

Relations with major authoritarian states: Iran, China, and Russia. Venezuela has strengthened its ties with authoritarian states for a number of reasons: (1) to bolster the policy of soft-balancing the United States; (2) to obtain weapons; (3) to obtain trade and foreign investment on unaccountable terms; and (4) to secure alliances that will not be subject to the scrutiny of national electorates and can thus veer far from the true national interest of each country.

The relationship with Iran meets all four objectives. The regime in Tehran is one of the main challengers of U.S. policy in Iraq, Israel, and the Middle East in general. Iran also provides Venezuela with arms, and it is conceivable that the two countries could cooperate on nuclear weapons research. In addition, Iran is a leading OPEC member facing shortfalls in oil production, so it shares Venezuela’s interest in maximizing world prices and bucking Saudi Arabia’s stabilization measures. Iran is also a source of substantial nonprivate investment in Venezuela; the Iranian state-owned oil company is making heavy investments in the Orinoco oil belt.

Relations with Russia are also intended to meet all four objectives, but the main emphasis thus far has been on weapons acquisition. In 2008, Venezuela was perhaps the third-largest buyer of Russian arms (in per capita terms, it was the largest buyer by far). The United States has banned arms sales to Venezuela, which helps to explain the turn to Russia but not the huge volume of purchases. While the military buildup could be seen as an end in itself, it may also represent an effort to win Russian cooperation on OPEC-mandated production cutbacks. (Russia, which is not an OPEC member, tends to take advantage of the organization’s restraint by boosting its own production.)

Venezuela’s ties with China meet only two of the four objectives—foreign investment and a relationship with an unaccountable regime. Chávez once had high hopes that the country would join his crusade to balance the United States and even buy the bulk of Venezuela’s oil, but China has not been taken in. It has thus far limited itself to providing trade, buying limited supplies of oil, and making investments in Venezuela.

Relations with Cuba. Among Venezuela’s authoritarian allies, Cuba is probably the most important for the regime’s self-image, and the relationship is distinguished by a unique exchange of financial support for ideological endorsement. From Cuba’s perspective, Venezuela has replaced the Soviet Union as its main sponsor, supplying handsome oil subsidies that allow the island state to reexport as much as 40 percent of the fuel it receives. This allowance is provided with almost no political or other conditions, unlike any aid or investment Cuba might obtain from international organizations or democratic countries. In return, Cuba serves as the issuer of a certificate of good “radical” credentials, permitting Chávez to flaunt his anti-imperialism and score points among the most extreme elements of the left in Latin America. Cuba also provides tangible assistance in the form of almost 40,000 technical experts, including doctors, nurses, teachers, coaches, and military and intelligence personnel.

Since Raúl Castro became president of Cuba, there has been speculation that the Cuban government is growing wary of the island’s dependence on its new benefactor. There are rumors, for instance, that Castro does not like Chávez personally, and that he is pursuing ways to diversify the country’s economic ties. Nevertheless, there are reasons to believe that the special relationship between Cuba and Venezuela will endure. Each country is providing the other with assets that are cheap for the donor and valuable to the recipient. Venezuela’s subsidy to Cuba consists of a small fraction of its oil production, while Cuba has a surplus of trained technical experts. The ideological endorsement, of course, costs Cuba nothing.