big stick
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English
Noun
big stick (plural big sticks)
- (often attributive) Significant power to punish or coerce.
- 1997, Randall Hansis, The Latin Americans: Understanding Their Legacy, page 188:
- Wilson publicly rejected both the "big stick diplomacy" of Teddy Roosevelt and the "dollar diplomacy" of William Howard Taft; […]
- 2002, Kenneth T. Broda-Bahm, Perspectives in Controversy, page 300:
- Too much debate theory is based on power rather than reason. Kritiks are used as big sticks to avoid one of the duties closely associated with debating — research.
- 2015, Falk Huettmann, Central American Biodiversity, page 34:
- It is difficult to deny that the American political culture of the Big Stick ideology (speak softly, and carry a big stick) is just another form of neo-imperialism; colonial power was reestablished in the new millennium.