What is BRICS' Global Agenda ?

 BRICS is putting together the world's biggest balance of power mechanism to date.

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By now we all know who was the ‘godfather’ of BRICS. In 2001 as chief economist at Goldman Sachs, Jim O’Neill used the acronym BRIC in a research paper. At the time, grouping together Brazil, Russia, India and China made a lot of sense, as Western capitals were eager to invest in faster-growing developing economies. 

The launch of BRICS unfortunately coincided with the launch of America’s Athenian-styled informal empire, which aimed to become the sole global hegemon economically, politically and militarily. 

Such hubristic ambitions greatly alarmed most emerging economic powerhouses, like China and Brazil, as well as India and Russia. Two decades later, BRICS’ combined share of global GDP is already higher than that of the G7 nations. The US, the leader of G7 , has these days a share of only 16 percent of global GDP, a far cry from the 50 percent it enjoyed back in 1945. 

Undaunted, the Americans are willing to risk an all-out war with the leading members of BRICS, China and Russia, in the hope of clinging to the self-appointed position of global hegemon. With this objective in mind, the US is dragging along both G7 and the members of the NATO alliance, a fact which actually elevates the importance of BRICS even more, according to the same Jim O’Neill:

“I think if I go right back to my initial paper, I cannot believe how narrow-minded or naïve leaders in the G7 countries are. The whole idea that this group of seven “industrialised” or “more developed” or “earlier developed” countries can run the world is embarrassing. Because, first of all, their share of the world GDP has declined. Japan’s not shown any net increase in its GDP for 20 years. Italy virtually never grows. So, this idea that they are some kind of thing for the whole world to follow is erroneous.

And then on top of it, G7 is effectively a hostage to whatever Washington wants. So how do you solve the mammoth global issues of our time with just those guys ? I mean, it’s embarrassing and that’s quite depressing, because the whole reason why I created the BRICS was to suggest we needed a better form of global governance than the G7.” (interview in African Business, June 1st, 2023)

After more than 20 years, from an economic grouping meant to rival the G7, BRICS morphed into an alliance of countries determined to thwart, in any way possible, the US’ drive for global hegemony. 

Not too many experts are clear about this, and quite possibly not even most BRICS members realise the fact that they actually helped put together a classic, European-style balance of power mechanism, meant to contain and defeat America’s global leadership ambitions.

Sure, there are many differences and even frictions among the leading BRICS countries. These, however, do not interfere with the main item on the 

BRICS’ agenda, namely that of stopping American hegemonism in its tracks. 

This is the key to understanding why more than 20 countries on all continents have expressed a desire to join the group at the recent BRICS summit in Johannesburg. Tired of being bullied by the US and to have their sovereignty diminished, these aspiring countries have decided to side with the BRICS in its quest to contain and defeat America’s hegemonic designs. 

To be sure, the size of this balance of power mechanism put together by BRICS under own eyes is unprecedented as far as size goes and is global in scope, as well. It includes not only Russia and China – the world’s largest and the world’s most populous countries, but also leading countries from Africa and South America. 

With its great economic and human resources , BRICS is fully able - economically and militarily - to tilt the balance in favour of developing countries for good, and thus put a stop to the absurd hegemonic ambitions of the US and its Western allies.

On Russia's Global Importance

 Over the last 30 years, Western officialdom's policies concerning Russia have grown increasingly irrational. Europeans tend to forget that long before the US or the Ukraine ever existed, Russia was always there in their hour of need. Unfortunately, after the latest events, Russia might not be there for us any longer.

For me as an historian, the only Slavic state that deserves all the respect and consideration of social scientists is the Russian state.

Unfortunately, the European Slavs proved an absolutely incredible inability to create solid states that would last over time and prosper. Neither the Serbs, nor the Czechs, nor the Slovaks or even the Poles have proved to Europe or the world that they have the attributes necessary to live in peace with each other, to build well-organized or consolidated state structures (see Ukraine).

To be sure, the Poles disappeared for 200 years from modern history, reappearing as a state only since 1918. Federal Yugoslavia disappeared after only 70 years, Czechoslovakia around the same time. Most of the time, these branches of the Slavic people became the victims of their stronger neighbours - Turks, Germans, Russians or Austrians - because of this inability to build solid state structures.

Please compare the European Slavs now with the Russians, who have a millenary history of existence as a state, although their central position in Eurasia is an extremely difficult one geopolitically. During the Middle Ages, they managed to defeat both the Mongol invaders and the Tartars, not to mention the Turks. In modern times, they colonized Siberia as far as the Pacific and came to expand their territories in the west to the borders of Romania or Poland. All this time, Russia has overall been a factor of stability in Europe, being a reliable ally of both the Germans and the Western powers - England and France, but also the United States - in the first half of the twentieth century.

Nowadays most of the European Slavs have joined the NATO umbrella and are barking like puppies at the big dog, Russia, which has done nothing to antagonize them in recent decades, on the contrary. The Russians have instead been busy rebuilding their economy and developing their agriculture. From an importer of wheat during communism - according to Gorbachev they used to purchase it with gold bullion at one point - they became one of the biggest exporters of grain.

Russia has always been run by the secret services, whether we are talking about Tsarist Ohrana, the Soviet KGB or now the FSB. This is one of the secrets of the Russian state's longevity and stability, since the Russians are not at all convinced that professional politicians or Western-type democracy could ensure their survival as a state. They were willing to give it a go during the nineties, but the experiment failed miserably and was never going to be repeated.

Of course, the West would prefer Russia to be run by an alcoholic like Yeltsin or someone like that. But the Russians - who have recovered economically from the disaster of the 1990s under Vladimir Putin, have paid off their outstanding debts, rebuilt their army and amassed important financial reserves for the first time in their recent history - have other options. In fact, this is the fundamental reason why Putin is not liked by leaders in the West, the rest is just propaganda.

In terms of international relations, Russia cannot agree to a unipolar world  ruled exclusively by Washington, just as China does not agree. The Russians' preference for a multi-polar world, in which they have a say, is hundreds of years old. They were the ones who put an end to the French hegemonic plans in 1814, they were also instrumental in the fight against German hegemony that caused two world wars last century. 

Russia had peacefully and voluntarily given up, without armed conflict, the bi-polar world that appeared after 1945, but it cannot agree not to participate at all in global decision-making. This approach is an extremely dangerous neoconservative utopia, which could trigger World War III, even a nuclear one. Unfortunately, since the inhabitants of the Anglosphere  are not Russians, I don't think they will peacefully give up their plans for a unipolar world that the American neoconservatives have been trying to impose globally for 25 years now ...

Undoing Germany's "Reluctant" Hegemony

 July 30, 2015

To those in the know, the Italian peninsula was not only the cradle of the Roman Empire or Rome the centre of the Catholic faithful, but also the birthplace of capitalism and of countless statecraft innovations and institutions still widely used around the world today.

During the middle ages, the Italian city-states thus discovered and perfected what is commonly known among IR specialists as the “balance of power” mechanism. Every time one of the city-states became too powerful economically or militarily and tried to subdue the others, most of the rest of the city-states would form a coalition against the offender, thus preserving their sovereignty over their economic and political affairs.

This time-honoured tradition continued long after the development of nation-states and was successfully used to control the hegemonic designs of European powers, such as France or Germany, to give but two of the best-known examples. For the past two centuries, until some sixty years ago, balance-of-power arrangements were initiated, financed and operated by Britain, which succeeded in defeating both Napoleon and Hitler and in bringing their hegemonic designs to an end. British leadership in this field prevented the loss of sovereignty by continental nations and during the 20th century it preserved democracy and the rule of law, albeit not always by peaceful means.

It would be a mistake to believe that old hegemonic designs nurtured by economically more powerful European nations have vanished since the creation of the European Union. If anything – as demonstrated by the recent developments from the 13th of July 2015 – such hegemonic efforts which chiefly belong to Germany are played out within the existing political structures and institutions of the European Union.

Institutions such as the Eurogroup, although they do not have a legal existence, nevertheless wield enormous power over the economic and financial affairs of EU member-countries since the introduction of the euro. Within this group, Germany plays the leading role and with the help of a few satellite-states makes all the important decisions.

There are other EU institutions, such as the ECB, the ESM or the Commission, that are manned by technocrats who have more decision-power than any elected political leader of any country. Here too, Germany has succeeded in throwing its economic weight around and has used the European Union’s design imperfections to establish its de facto leadership .

Reluctant or not, German dominance within the EU is by now an established fact and should be actively resisted by the rest of the EU member-states, like any other hegemonic episode in our continent’s history.

When one country becomes economically or militarily too powerful at the expense of all other members of the group it belongs to, there are usually two standard responses to such a situation: bandwagoning or balancing.

Today, countries like Austria, the Netherlands or the Baltic states have preferred to bandwagon, becoming German satellites in the process. They have displayed a propensity to endorse Wolfgang Schaeuble’s vision of “reform” for the EU’s structures. The German Finance Minister has declared during a conference at Brookings Institute in April 2015 that even Germany’s former arch-rival France, not only Greece, needs to be “restructured” by a troika, citing however “democracy” as a temporary stumbling block…

The other response – that is balancing – is the preferred method of Italy and France, consummate operators of balance-of-power mechanisms in the past. This is how Shahin Vallée, former advisor to ex-President Van Rompuy, has recently described the current situation in The New York Times:

“This forceful attitudes and the several taboos it broke reveal that the currency union that Germany wants is probably fundamentally incompatible with the one the French elite can sell and the French public can subscribe to. The choice soon will be whether Germany can build the euro it wants with France or whether the common currency falls apart.

Germany could undoubtedly build a very successful monetary union with the Baltic countries, the Netherlands and a few other nations, but it must understand that it will never build an economically successful and politically stable monetary union with France and the rest of Europe on these terms.

Over the long run, France, Italy and Spain to name just a few, would not take part in such a union, not because they can’t but because they wouldn’t want to. The collective GDP and population of these countries is twice that of Germany; eventually, a confrontation is inevitable.”

Since the 13th of July 2015, the number one priority in most EU capitals is no longer the Greek crisis, but how to deal with Germany’s latest hegemonic offensive. Ideally, a “Dexit” followed by the formation of a two-union Europe along the lines I have described in my earlier posts could replace the current dysfunctional union. Alternatively the union might disintegrate, USSR-style, into a myriad of nation-states large and small, dominated by populist or nationalist governments. Such a development, however, would gravely affect economic life as well as the security situation on our continent.

The US' Strategic Defence Review Assessed

 January 28, 2012

The Defense Strategic Review (DSR) released by the Pentagon on the 5th of January 2012 summarises the Obama Administration’s geopolitical agenda and strategic priorities. From it, experts can discern which country is considered the new enemy of the USA, although President Obama’s speech on the occasion does not mention China by name.

In France, the refocusing of the US strategy on the Asia-Pacific region is viewed by Professor Jean-Jacques Roche from ISAD as a positive development. Whilst he observes that some of the new EU members (countries like Poland, the Czech Republic and even Romania) might express their misgivings about the planned US troops withdrawal , Western suppliers of military hardware should supposedly rejoice. Professor Roche believes that the Pentagon’s DSR could kick-start the accelerated development of the European Defence Agency (EDA) and increase the mutualisation of the defence capabilities of the EU’s member countries.

The two reasons given by the US for the elaboration of the new military doctrine are the changed geopolitical environment and the radically different fiscal circumstances. In other words, the adoption of the new strategy is supposed to save the US some $450 billion over ten years, fiscal consolidation being nowadays regarded by Washington as a national security imperative…

We can also gauge from the document who the US’ current friends and enemies are. Unfortunately, China is identified as a potential foe, in the same paragraph with Iran. In the Middle East, America’s friends and allies are the Gulf countries and Israel. In Asia, India, South Korea, Taiwan and Japan are the allies supposed to offer the US the means of putting in place – if needed – a balance of power mechanism against China. This time around, the US needs Russia on its side, especially in the wake of the upheavals in the Middle East – hence the reset.

Interestingly enough, the Indians are advised by their own experts to refuse bandwagoning on the issue. Thus R.S. Kalha, an ex-Secretary of the Indian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, notes that in the past the US had forced India to settle on Kashmir. He rightly observes that South-East Asian nations are loath to become close allies of either China or the United States, for such an option could prove disastrous for them. R.S. Kalha believes that the Indian leadership should be prudent on the matter, as a clear-cut alliance with the US might prove detrimental to Indian interests. He knows that the nature of the US – China relationship is very complex and that a military conflict between the two giants seems highly unlikely, as long as China needs the American export markets and the US needs China to continue to buy its T-bills. To be sure, the relationship between the two powers is deeper and more complex than the one established by Washington with its Soviet counterpart during the Cold War.

The reception of the Pentagon’s DSR by the Chinese government was a rather cool one. The Chinese leadership seems unwilling to intensify confrontation and to become a new cold war target for Washington. The People’s Daily has insisted that China should continue with its economic development and avoid being dragged into a military competition with the US, as the Russians had. Still, the Chinese intend to continue to take care of what they call their ‘peripheral security interests’, in spite of the new assertiveness of the new US defence policy in Asia. For all other issues, the Chinese apparently intend to cooperate with the US in solving potential tensions via dialogue. (sources: Le Monde, Pentagon Paper, People’s Daily, IDSA India)