Big stick ideology, refers to U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt’s foreign policy: "speak softly and carry a big stick, you will go far." Roosevelt described his style of foreign policy as "the exercise of intelligent forethought and of decisive action sufficiently far in advance of any likely crisis.The idea is negotiating peacefully but also having strength in case things go wrong. Simultaneously threatening with the "big stick", or the military, ties in heavily with the idea of Realpolitik, which implies a pursuit of political power that resembles Machiavellian ideals.