ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the position of Venezuela and Colombia in the international system, their foreign policy interests and expanded scope of international concerns, and the strategies they employ to promote and protect their national interests. It provides a brief examination of foreign policy initiatives by Venezuela and Colombia in the circum-Caribbean region and their efforts to move out from the shadow of the United States through closer collaboration with the Third World and the nonaligned bloc. All Latin American and Caribbean nations have foreign relations; most do not have true foreign policies. Foreign policy implies purposive behavior, not simply the ability of a state to react to external events. Because of their limited resources, Venezuela and Colombia focus their foreign policy efforts on select functional and/or geographic areas. The increased involvement of Venezuela and Colombia in the circum-Caribbean region serves as an excellent illustration of the range of their foreign policy interests and the strategies used to pursue them.
