The Big Stick: The Limits of Soft Power and the Necessity of Military Force Paperback – 1 Jan. 1900

Cohen is an accomplished scholar and writer. He is also a supreme Hawk. The case he makes for the use of military force is well made. The only problem is that the general arguments apply to other great powers – China, the power Cohen thinks is the biggest threat to America. He does not like China strutting about the South China Sea and influencing the countries near her. What grand, altruistic reasons does America have to do the same? Cohen will flip should China attempt to do in the Gulf of Mexico what America is doing in the South China Sea. The world needs peace. Hawks threaten peace.

Para los que estudian Ciencias Sociales, en especial Relaciones Internacionales es un libro bastante útil, además de ser una buena lectura. Principalmente porque en la actualidad se pone en duda la supremacía de los Estados Unidos en la esfera internacional y los debates sobre este tema están lejos de terminar.El profesor Eliot Cohen fue consejero de la Secretaría de Estado durante la administración Obama y con conocimiento de causa aporta un estudio muy sesudo sobre el papel que juega EE. UU. en la actualidad con el surgimiento de nuevos actores como China, Daesh, Corea del Norte etc. que ponen en tela de juicio el poder que tiene dicho país a nivel global. A partir del estudio de los conceptos soft power y hard power acuñados por Joseph Nye demuestra que los Estados Unidos necesitan en su política exterior un balance entre el hard power y soft power para mantener la hegemonía que estableció el siglo pasado; siendo que en los últimos años se han decantado por el uso del segundo en su política exterior. Para Cohen el camino que Estados Unidos debe tomar es un poco como la famosa frase de Theodore Roosevelt en 1901: "Speak softly and carry a big stick".

There are, it seems to me, two distinct elements to “The Big Stick: The Limits of Soft Power & the Necessity of Military Force” by Eliot Cohen. First, and in my opinion far most important, is how should our elected and military leaders think about national security strategy and the decision to go to war? Second, why is the use of force still important today and where might it most likely be required in the early twenty-first century?The vast majority of the “The Big Stick” focuses on the second point and tackles it first, but I’ve flipped the order in this review to reflect what I perceive will be the enduring value of Cohen’s effort: his remarkably sober perspective on how leaders should think about and prepare to execute war.Before we start, a few words about the author and this reviewer are necessary. Cohen may be a product of Samuel Huntington’s government department at Harvard, but he is, at heart, an historian. I was a student of Professor Cohen’s at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in the late 1990s, where I received a master’s degree in international relations and economics. Despite the words on my diploma, it was the study of history that dominated my academic and extracurricular experience at SAIS. I took a semester-long course dedicated to reading Thucydides’ “History of the Peloponnesian War” (along with close study of Sun Tzu, Clausewitz and many others); I led a Prussian military-inspired two-day Staff Ride exploring Stonewall Jackson’s 1862 Shenandoah Valley campaign; and I wrote my thesis on Soviet general Mikhail Frunze’s abandonment of the militia principle in the early days of the Red Army. It’s been almost two decades since I graduated from Cohen’s program at SAIS, yet his powerful focus on history has never loosened its grip on my approach to understanding the world around me (my 250+ Amazon history book reviews are proof of that), even though my career has been made in the fast-paced world of technology in Silicon Valley. I write this extended introduction to emphasize the gravity of what I perceive to be the most important point made in this book, namely the last ten pages where Cohen dismisses grand strategy as “an idea whose time will never come, because the human condition does not permit it” and instead enumerates his six basic principles on the use of force. He preaches for a “fundamental acceptance of uncertainty” when it comes to crafting national security strategy and the use of force. He warns against the use of “rules of thumb and strategic aphorisms,” along with convenient but vacuous catchphrases, such as containment, end state, and exit strategy, which he writes “equates to a kind of strategic pixie dust, the sprinkling of which over complex policy problems may seem to make them manageable.”Rather, policymakers need to embrace “accident, contingency, and randomness” as fundamental to any international engagement, particularly those requiring the use of force. He suggests doing away with the current process of developing watered-down National Security Strategies or the cumbersome defense planning exercise known as the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), neither of which reflect reality. Such strategic documents, he argues, cannot be so conveniently timed, nor should they be drafted by members of the career national security establishment. As an alternative, Cohen recommends “a single document produced at irregular intervals [5 to 7 years feels right to him] under the auspices of the president in his role at commander in chief.”Cohen’s six principles are really “anti-rules,” so as far as I’m concerned; a collective argument against the use of any prescriptive principles by policymakers in the first place. Moreover, they also feel incredibly relevant to any captain of industry.First, “Understand your war for what it is, not what you wish it to be.” He recommends a “self-conscious purging of one’s mind of analogies, parallels and metaphors,” a wholesale abandonment of approaches like that made famous by Neustadt and May in “Thinking in Time: The Use of History by Decisionmakers.” Rather, accept that “your war” is unique and understand it for what it is. Clausewitz held that this was “the first, the supreme, the most far reaching act of judgment” a leader had to make. It forms the foundation of Cohen’s strategic mindset and it’s equally applicable to business managers, most of whom crave analogues to guide their decision-making, despite the fact that each market is invariably unique.Second, “Planning is important, being able to adapt is more important.” Before engaging in any conflict, planners “should build in a large and explicit margin of error,” because “part of the decision to go to war requires accepting that the future will contain surprises.” In other words, nothing is as easy as it seems. It’s an argument that anyone who has had to commit to quarterly revenue targets would understand.Third, “You will prefer to go short, but prepare to go long.” Even if you genuinely believe the impending conflict will be of short duration, recognize that “the American people have to be informed and persuaded that a campaign is worth undertaking,” because the initial enthusiasm will erode and it will erode quickly. Fortune 500 CEOs (Jeff Bezos not included) regularly have to show Wall Street that their corporate strategy is working after two quarters, or else the market will penalize their company. Cohen’s principle suggests that the same applies for American presidents.Fourth, “While engaging in today’s fight, prepare for tomorrow’s challenge.” Leaders need to be constantly reviewing and assessing future threats, even while battling a current enemy, because “there will be no end states and precious few exits – only new and different problems.” Just as successful companies are never finished competing, so too with successful nations, it seems. Both just find themselves bumping into other successful companies/countries, such as Amazon and Google competing in the intelligent home device market in 2017 or the US and China in the South China Sea.Fifth (and, frankly, finally), “Adroit strategy matters; perseverance usually matters more.” Strategy, technology, tactics and training all matter – and matter a lot – but “they do not count as much as sheer grit, at all levels.” In other words, the old adage about the size-of-the-fight-in-the-dog mattering most often applies to wars, too, and also competition in the tech world, as my experience on the losing side against Mint.com, Square, and other tech upstarts can testify.[Cohen has a final, sixth principle: “A president can launch a war; to win it, he or she must sustain congressional and popular support.” Frankly, I’m not sure why Cohen and his editors felt the need to include this final principle, as the proceeding principles clearly argue for it.]All of the above is literally covered in the final dozen pages of the book. It is clearly not the focus of the book, despite its undeniable wisdom. Rather, the bulk of “The Big Stick” looks at various arguments against the use of force, what the past 15 years of war have taught us, the relative position of the United States over the next half century of so, and what he sees as the four principle threats to American national security. If “The Big Stick” is remembered 25-years from now and beyond, it will be because of the principles stated above, I believe, and not the insights highlighted below.There are at least five schools of thoughts that argue against the utility of force. Cohen elucidates them, and then quickly swats away each as more-or-less nonsense. First, there is the “our better angels” argument that the world, from a long range perspective stretching over centuries, is getting less violent (Cohen says that any thesis that casually waves away events like World War II as a random and unfortunate aberration to the overall trend should provide contemporary strategists cold comfort). Second, he discusses “academic/pacific realism” that focuses on the balancing of power and rational state actors (any argument that dismisses the importance of faith and ideology, along with non-state actors, is of limited utility). Third, is the post-Cold War nostrum of “soft power” and its reliance on the power of American influence and culture (while certainly useful, soft power is slow acting, uncontrollable and cannot be directed, severely limiting its effectiveness). Fourth, some argue against American engagement because of repeated failures and clear incompetence (no other countries have been any more successful, Cohen says, and previous failures is not a compelling argument for throwing our hands up and quitting). Finally, “nation building at home” suggests that the United States has plenty of problems at home that need fixing first (the “weakest argument,” Cohen says that there is no evidence that the country can’t easily afford both).So what have fifteen years of war taught us? What lessons should we take away from the experience since 9/11? Not too many, Cohen claims, rather surprisingly. “It is trite and incorrect to say that generals refight the last war. It is more accurate to say that the efforts to wage war, and the scars they inflict, last, leaving their mark on individuals and institutions alike.” If that is so, what scars have the last fifteen years left? A tougher, more battle-hardened military, for sure, but a more ambivalent political culture; more awareness of the limits of our power, but also possibly less resolute; and overall less amenable to the use of force. Cohen sees this legacy as dangerous and misguided, namely because we live in a very dangerous world in desperate need of American leadership.Moreover, “despite all the disappointments and losses of recent years, America is immensely strong, across many dimensions of power,” everything from conventional military strength, nuclear weapons, defense R&D and global military logistics to demography, economic growth, technical innovation, higher education, and political cohesion (one feels the need to qualify that last variable with “for now…”). In short, “no other country or collection of countries, has a better hand to play in international politics” than the United States and no collection of states likely will for quite awhile. The real vulnerability, he says, are that some aspects of America’s technical lead are slipping, higher levels of defense organization are growing sclerotic, and traditionally developed concepts of war are inadequate to meet threats in both the near and long terms.Cohen outlines four primary challenges to the United States, which he addresses in descending order of magnitude. He is unambiguous about where he sees the top threats: China and Islamic radicals, or as he calls them “jihadis” (because it’s what they call themselves). “China is, by virtue of its size, wealth, and aspirations, the great geopolitical challenger of the United States; the jihadists are, by their murderous convictions and practices, the most immediate threat.” That said, Cohen seems to caution us not to make either into the proverbial “ten-foot tall enemy.”China, as a strategic problem for the United States, is genuinely unprecedented. For its first quarter millennium of history the United States was the dynamic, economic growth engine harboring territorial ambitions and tremendous latent military power that caused rivals concern. Now that shoe is on the other foot. Cohen concludes that “China is a serious and sophisticated challenger, but has its own weaknesses, misconceptions, and limits,” not least of which is a network of Asian countries that are collaborating to resist Chinese expansion.The second major problem, the Jihadis, will require “a long war against a dangerous minority element of a major religious faith.” And this campaign will have to be multifaceted. Cohen criticizes the over-reliance on targeted drone strikes against terror leaders (“If the history of warfare has one lesson to offer,” he writes “it is that there are no decisive weapons, tactics, or operational concepts.”) Rather, he recommends a re-balancing of how to view the challenge – it is neither a minor threat comparable to traffic accidents, nor an apocalyptic confrontation between cultures – and employing multiple elements in a decades long strategy of “wearing down terrorist organizations, dividing the, waging political warfare against their base, as a last resort intervening to help stabilize countries threatened by them, and working in a coalition.”Third, Cohen singles out four states – Russia, Iran, North Korea, and Pakistan – each with nuclear capabilities or ambitions, and connections to China in one form or another, as potentially destabilizing and, indeed, dangerous. Here the author argues that the US needs to improve the credibility of our deterrent forces, up to and including pre-emptive use of low-yield nuclear weapons, both to reassure allies and deter reckless behavior by states that have been reckless in the recent past. (Many on the Left, no doubt, will view Cohen’s frank openness to the use of tactical nuclear weapons as unhinged.) And, again, he stresses the need for the US to improve its capabilities in so-called hybrid wars that marry “subversion, propaganda, clandestine operations, and the use of proxy forces, as well as conventional operations.”Finally, there are the non-state threats, the great commons of the open sea, space and cyberspace. Unlike the others, no one knows for sure what conflict in space or cyberspace will really look like. Cohen believes that while the potential gravity of the threats, cyber warfare in particular, have been exaggerated, they should nevertheless be treated the same way as physical attacks (i.e. a nation that launches a cyber attack that shuts down an electrical grid should be treated as no different than if it had achieved the same objective with a cruise missile). In these areas, a host of civilian agencies, along with private enterprise, will play important roles, but, Cohen argues, “military power remains the ultimate guarantor that the diverse great commons of mankind remain accessible.”In sum, Cohen places a heavy emphasis open-ended thinking and the strenuous use of propaganda and coalition operations to defend the liberties of speech, property and civil society well into the twenty-first century. He concedes that those liberties cannot be imposed by force, but warns that “neither can [the United States] hope to flourish in a world increasingly hostile to those values.”

Eliot Cohen deservedly stands tall among America’s strategic thinkers, and whether you are an experienced national security practitioner or an informed citizen, this elegantly written new book needs to be read and taken seriously. Like Supreme Command, his 2002 study of leadership in wartime, The Big Stick is both digestible and filled with distilled wisdom. The title carries the spirit of Teddy Roosevelt, taken from the enlightened proverb, “Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.” But the book’s hero is Winston Churchill, whose indomitable will and faith in Britain’s alliance with the United States produced victory in World War II, which in turn created the enduring architecture of the world we live in today.Cohen is not making an argument in favor of war, but rather for “peace through strength.”His message is that in order for the United States to exist as a nation of ideas and a global leader, hard power is the necessary complement to soft power. A strong national defense is all the more important today as threats have multiplied and international competition has become more serious than at any time since the Cold War ended more than two decades ago. Cohen walks us through the ways in which the U.S. Armed Forces remain indispensable to responding to China’s rising power, combating Jihadi terrorism, dealing with adversaries such as Russia, and protecting the global commons. He leavens but does not overburden the chapters with the lessons of history, including observations on errors in the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He counsels that it is prudent to afford the cost of strong national defense – on the order of 4% of GDP – both to deter war and to be prepared for those that inevitably will occur. The alternative of failing to stand up to these national security challenges is far worse.

He gives a good deal of background information regarding certain historical events & their impact in more recent history. However, his political bias is rather clear when speaking about Presidents Bush or Trump.

A professor of Strategic Studies at Johns Hopkins University and a former counselor to the State Department, Eliot Cohen convincingly defends the necessity of continued global American military power — a perspective not necessarily embraced by many Americans on either the left or to the emerging nationalism on the right. Unquestionably qualified on the topic, I found that Cohen offered his views clearly, concisely, and compellingly that a vibrant armed force is vital to our world order without coming across as hawkish or jingoistic. Moreover, Cohen levels criticisms regarding his position to past and current administrations without any political leaning or agenda, which I found strengthened his premise.Readers will be briefed on his assessment of key international challenges posed not just by jihadists but also China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. Hopefully our current administration is paying attention!Finally, Cohen offers a novel approach as means to provide the necessary resources for "hard power": a percentage-driven budget process. Based on his analysis, Cohen recommends a sustained level at 4% GDP to provide key consistency in times of uncertainty, contingency, and the unforeseen that characterizes human affairs.