The difference between dictatorial and non-dictatorial statist regimes is not one of mere degree. Because totalitarian dictatorships are so often bent on world domination and the obliteration of freedom as a matter of ideology, the criteria for identifying them will frequently serve to identify the security threats to a free nation. But not even all dictatorships deserve economic sanctions. The Sultan of Brunei, for example, holds supreme autocratic power in his tiny country on the island of Borneo, but he does not pose a military threat to the United States. Similarly, because he does not pose a military threat, there is no issue of national self-interest requiring the imposition of economic sanctions.
Economic sanctions are a tool of national self-defense.
They are to be exercised when and only when their use serves to undermine a foreign military threat. At this time, his confusion of Objectivism with libertarianism caused him to think that the foreign policy of a free nation would be bare if not non-existent. This idea, among other philosophical confusions, caused him to transfer from that fine institution, and later teach his debaters that Objectivism stood for free trade with China, two decisions he would always regret. Ideas have consequences. All rights Reserved.