This paper brings together two cases from the Global South—the Libyan Arab al-Jamahiriyah and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela—to de-center notions of security, development, and war from Western paradigms. It examines how mainstream analyses in IR and IPE have relied on three main ‘theses’ (authoritarian, rentier, rogue) to frame the historical socio-political formations of these states, as well as the extent to which those terms continue to set the frame to comprehend the nature of their current socio-economic crises. The paper argues that the uncritical reliance on these concepts hardens into a one-size-fits-all vision of international (in)security. On the one hand, it internalizes the causes of war and conflict within these countries, de-linking from the political economy of confrontations vis-à-vis the US-led capitalist global order. On the other, it forecloses possibilities for alternative paths to development, as emerging from and grounded in a global South context.