The Big Stick: Force and American Foreign Policy in the Age of Obama and Beyond BESA Center December 10, 2013 Lecture by Dr. Eliot A. Cohen of Johns Hopkins University, on the topic of โThe Big Stick: Force and American Foreign Policy in the Age of Obama and Beyond.โ Thursday, December 26 at 4:30 pm, BESA Seminar Room (Building 203, Room 131).