Book Review: The big stick: The limits of soft power & necessity of military force

• Author: Jessica D. Blankshain
• DOI: 10.1177/0095327X17727073
• Published date: 01 April 2018
• Date: 01 April 2018
• Subject Matter: Book Review

Book Review

Book Review

Cohen, E. A. (2016). The big stick: The limits of soft power & necessity of military force. New York,

NY: Basic Book. 304 pp. $27.99 (hardcover), ISBN: 0465044727

Reviewed by: Jessica D. Blankshain, U.S. Naval War College, Newport, RI, USA

DOI: 10.1177/0095327X17727073

In The Big Stick, Eliot Cohen asks what role the military should play in American

foreign policy in the 21st century. He frames the book as revisiting Theodore

Roosevelt’s early 20th-century speech on America’s “National Duties,” “at a time

when many Americans wonder whether the United States should continue to play a

role that even [Roosevelt] could not have envisaged—that of guarantor of world

order ...a spokesman for, and in some cases defender of, the liberties of foreign

peoples in remote lands” (p. x). Cohen’s thesis is that, contrary to popular skepti-

cism, the United States should stay Roosevelt’s course, seeking to continue its role

as a global power despite challenges from a rising China, global jihadis, dangerous

regional powers, and threats to and arising from ungoverned spaces. Doing so will

require increased investment in military power; in particular, he argues that the U.S.

military needs to reinvigorate its strategic thinking, embrace uncertainty, and recre-

ate a capability for rapid mobilization.

Cohen begins by countering five prominent arguments against the need for

increased American military power. The first—discussed most prominently in Ste-

ven Pinker’s The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined (2012)—

argues that the world is becoming more peaceful and thus will require less frequent

intervention by the United States as global police. While accepting Pinker’s overall

assertion that the world is becoming less violent, Cohen finds it unsatisfying to

dismiss the rather significant interruptions to the trend during the 20th century—

most notably two World Wars—and suggests that America’s use of hard power in

the past may itself have been a significant contributor to this peaceful trend. Second,

Cohen dismisses the realist argument that today’s global order is a rather stable one

of competing powers, and the balance of power (backed by nuclear weapons) will

generally keep the peace. He argues that history has defied realists’ predictions in the

past, and it is likely to do so again. Third, Cohen confronts the argument that “soft

power”

1

can replace military power in maintaining a global order beneficial to the

United States. He notes that soft power has its limits, with a particular focus on cases

where economic sanctions have failed.

Armed Forces & Society

2018, Vol. 44(2) 379-381

ªThe Author(s) 2017

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