big stick

“Speak softly, and carry a big stick,” Theodore Roosevelt advised, though he never envisioned a successor would prove capable of obliterating cities half a world away in under half an hour.

But when Bush’s attorneys approached the Trust with “a big stick”, he said, they found that the organization was more than willing to work with them.

“We don’t go in with the big stick to begin with,” Morling said.

It is quite common these days to hear those who specialise in Taiwan studies quoting the old maxim from President Theodore Roosevelt to "speak softly and carry a big stick".

Wang did criticize the use of “the big stick of sanctions” and engaging in power games, charges that China often levels at the United States.