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Big Sticks

As parents, we understand that when it comes to dealing out consequences, it is the threat of punishment which is at the root of any control. Granted, every now and again you have to administer the punishment in order to keep the threat present in your kids' minds. But should you ever reach the point that punishments are being doled out right and left, you have clearly lost control. In a similar vein, punishments have to be realistic. Telling your child that if he doesn't clean his room you'll make him sleep on the moon may be amusing, but at best is an unspecific threat. You aren't really going to do that, and he knows it. For a child poised to defy you, it's a dumb consequence. The point being that you need to be prepared to follow through on your threats.

But you knew all of that. And you also know that carrots work better than sticks and that honey gathers more flies than vinegar. So I have one question for you, "Why aren't you President?" I ask because the current guy doesn't get this. Teddy Roosevelt said we should speak softly and carry a big stick. It's the same idea, just on a political rather than a familial scale. But the principle is the same.

Okay, so we're swaggerin' about with our big-ass stick looking all mean and ornery. Sooner or later, someone will test the consequence. Somebody's gonna be feeling their oats and wanna see if we really have the big brass ones to wield the stick. So what are we to do? Well, we hit 'em with it. Once. And hard. Leave 'em with a bloody nose and walk away.

"Walk away? That doesn't sound manly. Shouldn't we stick around and
beat them some more?"

Ahhh... Grasshopper, you have much to learn.

By hitting them we demonstrated our willingness to use the stick. By walking away, we showed that the bloody nose was just a small sample of what we could do if we really wanted to. We have reasserted the threat. The potential of greater pain. And as above, it is the potential pain which yields the control.

Unless we are prepared to kill the person, all out rage against the transgressor will only show them that they can survive our stick. That will make them stronger and more likely to resist control in the future. They survived once, they probably will again. And others will draw strength from the survivor as well, thus diminishing our control over them.

The Big Stick Gambit is a play of finesse, not strength. A point I think we've lost as a country. In the first Gulf War and in Afghanistan, we finessed well. Both Kuwait and 9-11 were challenges which demanded we give someone a bloody nose. Iraq and Afghanistan got a dose of the stick. Both countries fell quickly back into their former states (recovered from the bloody nose), albeit with more caution about harboring violence against the U.S. Granted, in both cases it was (or will be) necessary to periodically whack them. And we should expect an occasional "incident". That's part of the gambit. You can't play this game and expect to be left alone and never challenged. But on the plus side, the challenges are typically small and there is no persistent military occupation, no nation building, nor the exorbitant expense associated with either.

We have played the gambit badly. We have lost our swagger. Others are learning from our failures to command control and respect in Iraq. Our only short-term option to reassert our Big Stick policy would be the annihilation of Iraq as a country and as a culture. We would need to make it the 51st State. And that isn't going to happen - nor should it.

At this point, we can walk away now and admit we blew it. Alternatively, we can stay and spend billions of dollars and another 1000 lives, only to walk away at some point in the future. The result for Iraq won't be substantively different. We cannot create a democracy out of Iraq. We cannot conduct a revolution for them. That has to be something which comes from within, and in their case, it is not forthcoming. Not now, not in 5 years. But in the mean time we die there, our economy dies here, and our right to swagger anywhere in front of anyone diminishes.

It is time to employ the 1st Rule of Holes - when you're in one, stop digging.

Of course, there's always the honey and carrots approach... replete with it's own set of virtues and dangers. And any good tactician has a wide array of gambits in his diplomatic toolbox. Only a fool uses them so badly.