Under President Houari Boumedienne (1965-1978) Algeria experienced the golden years of its diplomacy. Indeed, the country played a remarkable role on the world stage. Although Algeria’s international relations and diplomacy were shaped by the 7-year wartime experience, Boumedienne and his foreign minister Abdelaziz Bouteflika carried out the principles laid out before independence. Various constants (national sovereignty, territorial integrity, economic nationalism, and support for Third World causes and positive nonalignment) determined its regional and global policies. A close examination of those relations shows that not only Algeria’s foreign policy mirrored domestic policies but they also highlighted how the country responded to outside influence and sought to reshape the external economic and security environments. The determination to build an independent, modern state free from the prevalent rules of an international context dominated by the great, mainly Western, powers brought the country at loggerheads with France and the United States. Algeria’s effective and quite influential diplomacy attempted to reshape international political and economic relations by contesting Western dominance without however aligning itself with the USSR with which it maintained excellent political and military relations. Despite the prominent role that Algeria played in that period, very few in-depth studies have been conducted on its foreign policy. This paper seeks to fill that gap by unravelling the main factors that shaped the country’s foreign policy and how Algeria’s diplomacy operated not only in the regional and global contexts but also within various international organizations. Moreover, the paper will examine the interplay between domestic and foreign policy. The ultimate objective of the paper is to help shed light on the various changes in Algerian policy that have taken place since the end of that era. The research will rely on official documents as well as interviews with diplomats who served during that period.