When does kidnapping a dictator become an act of liberation? When does violating sovereignty protect freedom? These aren’t hypothetical questions for ivory tower philosophers; they’re the urgent dilemmas posed by President Donald Trump’s recent Venezuelan adventure.
The case against
First, Trump is, with his Venezuelan adventurism, violating his campaign promise of avoiding foreign wars. That alone constitutes a breach of his social contract with the American electorate.
Second, Trump has made, in effect, a contract with the people of his country. They will pay their taxes, and he will use his office to protect them from foreign and domestic enemies.
Was Nicolás Maduro threatening to use the limited power of the Venezuelan military to invade the United States? He was not.
Therefore, this traditional justification for military intervention does not hold water. This tyrant was using his armed forces to brutalize his own citizenry, not Americans.
Third, Trump did not respect the niceties of the Constitution, stating that only Congress may declare war. The president may do so if the US is under direct attack, but that is not the case here.
The case for
There is no reason a state cannot ally itself with friendly counterparts. A Venezuela-absent Maduro, replaced as president perhaps by someone such as María Corina Machado, might well serve American interests.
It requires no leap of imagination to think that the Venezuelan people would vastly prefer her leadership to his tyranny. If so, this would constitute another defense of Trump’s recent initiative.
The Venezuelan military would offer negligible assistance to US defense needs. It has proven effective at brutalizing its own citizens but would contribute little in confronting genuine external threats.
Consider this by analogy to contractual obligations. A security contractor hired to protect one client abandons that post to defend another. Is this justified?
At first glance, no; it appears to violate the original contract. But yes, it is, if protecting the first client optimally requires securing the cooperation of the second, which this action achieves.
Rescuing innocent people from the totalitarianism imposed by Maduro must surely count favorably in this calculus.
The hypocrisy of selective outrage
Now for the delicious irony. The very same voices now shrieking about Trump’s “illegal” snatch-and-grab of Maduro are often the ones who have spent years demanding the arrest of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Let that sink in for a moment.
Maduro presided over the systematic destruction of Venezuela’s economy, transforming a once-prosperous nation into a humanitarian catastrophe. He rigged elections, tortured political prisoners, and drove millions into exile and starvation.
Netanyahu, by contrast, leads a democratic nation defending itself against terrorist organizations sworn to its destruction.
Yet somehow, in the inverted moral universe of contemporary international discourse, the Venezuelan dictator deserves due process and sovereignty protections, while the Israeli prime minister deserves to be hauled before the International Criminal Court.
The ICC issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant on November 21, 2024, alleging “responsibility for the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.”
The ICC has no jurisdiction over the US (which wisely never ratified the Rome Statute) or Israel.
Yet this hasn’t stopped self-appointed global arbiters from demanding Netanyahu’s arrest while expressing outrage over Maduro’s perfectly legal capture by US forces conducting a legitimate military operation.
If international law and sovereignty matter so profoundly when extracting a South American strongman, where was this principled commitment when protesters blocked highways demanding Netanyahu’s arrest for the alleged crime of defending his country against Hamas?
The cognitive dissonance is breathtaking. Apparently, sovereignty is sacred when it protects socialist dictators but disposable when it shields democratic leaders fighting terrorism.
This hypocrisy extends far beyond Netanyahu. It reveals a deeper pathology in how international norms are selectively weaponized.
Dictators who brutalize their own people receive every protection of sovereignty and international law, while democracies defending themselves face impossible standards and prosecution threats.
The same voices that champion the ICC’s pursuit of democratic leaders suddenly discover profound reverence for national sovereignty when the target is an actual tyrant.
Strategic considerations
The contrast becomes even starker when examining America’s strategic relationships. Nothing in limited-government libertarian philosophy precludes cooperating with other democratic states to advance American security interests.
Some allies contribute more substantially than others. A friendly, democratic Venezuela under leadership like Machado’s would be diplomatically beneficial but hardly a strategic transformation.
Other American allies, however, possess genuinely formidable military capabilities that could prove invaluable in serious conflicts.
Israel’s military, for instance, ranks among the world’s most powerful and is listed by US News & World Report’s 2023 analysis as fourth globally, behind only Russia, the US, and China.
The principle remains consistent: strategic alliances that genuinely enhance American security are perfectly compatible with minarchist thinking, provided they serve defensive purposes rather than imperial adventures.
Trump has proposed transforming Gaza into a Mediterranean resort, describing it as a potential “Riviera of the Middle East” and envisioning “really good quality housing, like a beautiful town.”
While this may sound fanciful, it illustrates a broader principle: transforming conflict zones into prosperous economic centers serves both humanitarian and strategic interests.
It demonstrates that peace and prosperity offer superior outcomes to endless warfare and martyrdom.
A tale of two snatches
We titled this essay “A tale of two snatches” for good reason. The first snatch: Trump’s operation to capture Maduro, conducted openly, targeting an actual dictator who brutalized his own people.
The second snatch: the ICC’s legal machinations to arrest Netanyahu, pursued through international tribunals, targeting a democratic leader defending his nation against terrorism.
The first provokes international outrage and accusations of illegality.
The second receives acclaim as justice is finally served. This inversion reveals everything wrong with contemporary international discourse.
From our anarcho-capitalist perspective, both operations represent state overreach. From our minarchist framework, however, the distinction becomes stark. If we must choose between snatching dictators and snatching democrats, between capturing tyrants and prosecuting defenders, the choice should be obvious.
Trump’s Venezuelan intervention may violate libertarian purity and his own non-interventionist promises.
But the ICC’s pursuit of Netanyahu violates something more fundamental: the basic principle that justice should target the guilty, not shield them. When international institutions reserve their outrage for operations against dictators while championing prosecutions of democratic leaders, they forfeit all moral authority.
The hypocrisy is far from subtle. The same voices condemning Maduro’s capture as illegal have spent years demanding Netanyahu’s arrest as justice. Apparently, sovereignty protects socialist strongmen but not democracies under siege.
International law shields tyrants but prosecutes their victims. At least in Trump’s snatch, the right target got grabbed.
Oded J.K. Faran is the director of Faran and Co. International Translation Ltd., based in Tbilisi, Georgia, specializing in legal and technical translation for international clients.
Walter E. Block is the Harold E. Wirth eminent scholar endowed chair and professor of economics at Loyola University New Orleans and author of walterblock.substack.com.