Big-stick diplomacy was named after Theodore Roosevelt's famous dictum: Speak softly and carry a big stick, an African proverb.

Originally it was a plan to police the whole Western hemisphere, expressed in the Roosevelt Corollary, an address to congress that expanded the earlier Monroe Doctrine which had denied Europe power in the Americas. The intentions of this diplomacy were supposedly to protect United States economic interests in Latin America. The ideas led to the expansion of the US Navy and greater involvement in world affairs. All of this in turn led to the Dollar Diplomacy that followed the Roosevelt administration.

See also

• Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine