the BRICS really emerging as the primary challenger: to Western dominance in international relations? In recent years, the group is increasingly seen as an alternative global power block, taking on the United States and its allies. Originally made up of Russia, India, China and Brazil, it’s now expanded to nine members, Power Blocks are a fundamental feature of modern international relations. Made up of countries that want to enhance their collective influence or pursue common strategic interests, they can emerge in various ways. Sometimes they arise as a joint response to perceived threats.
Brazil, Russia, India and China. Termed the BRIC states, they shared several key features. A large geographic size, significant populations and rapidly growing economies. By the middle of the decade, What had started as a catchy acronym began emerging as an actual entity. Driven by their wish to strengthen their role in global affairs and reduce their dependence on Western-dominated financial institutions, the four countries held their first summit in Russia in 2009. Having established themselves as a group, the next major step came the following year, in 2010. Attempting to strengthen their legitimacy and influence on the global stage, By including a country from each continent, the group now added South Africa, thus becoming the BRICS.
the group steadily increased its activities. As well as leading calls for a multipolar international system no longer dominated by the West, they called for global institutions to be reformed to give a stronger voice to the developing world. In addition, the group became increasingly organised. As well as holding annual summits, they launched several high-profile initiatives to offer an alternative to what they saw as Western-dominated institutions. Most notably, in 2014 they established the BRICS Development Bank, now known as the New Development Bank, based in Shanghai in China. By the start of the 2020s, the group was increasingly seen as a powerful voice for the Global South.
This came to a head at its 15th summit held in South Africa in August 2023, when the group announced that six new members had been invited to join the bloc. Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. While Argentina later withdrew its application after Javier Millet became president in December 2023 and Saudi Arabia has yet to decide on membership. The other four countries joined in January 2024, taking the group’s total membership to nine. Since then, the list of potential new members has continued to grow. In August 2024, Azerbaijan announced its intention to join the group, following a visit by Russian President Vladimir Putin. And it’s against this backdrop that reports have now emerged that even Turkey is looking to join the group. Although, of course, it’s unclear whether membership of the group would be incompatible with its NATO membership.
All this has strengthened claims that the BRICS group is emerging as the most significant counterweight to Western domination in world affairs. But is this really the case? To its supporters, the BRICS group is a significant force in international politics. First, there’s the group’s combined geographic, demographic and economic strength. Together, the nine members cover 46 million square kilometres or 18 million square miles. This is around 31% of the world’s total landmass. And their combined population of around 3.6 billion is around 45% of the world’s inhabitants.
Moreover, their combined GDP of around 30 trillion US dollars is 30% of the world’s total. Altogether, they represent a vast block by almost any measure. All this gives them enormous potential to shape the international economic and political system. Secondly and crucially, the BRICS group is increasingly seen by others as a powerful voice in international affairs. Both as a group and individually, they exert considerable economic, political and diplomatic influence not only over developing countries, but also over the West. Just on its own, China has seen the key challenger to US supremacy in world affairs. Pulling together various regional and emerging international powers, the BRICs are now seen as the natural leaders of the non-Western world.
This is also aided by the fact that the group’s core messages resonate strongly with many other countries. Their calls to reform multilateral institutions such as the United Nations and its financial bodies, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, strike a chord with many developing states that have long felt they’ve been shut out of global decision making. Likewise, on climate change, they’ve often spoken out against what they see as Western policies imposed on the developing world. Many countries have long resented demands that they reduce consumption and development for their populations, while Western states enjoy the benefits of past pollution that they’ve inflicted.
there’s the group’s growing attraction. a club. More and more countries want to be part of it. The Group Summit now attracts many other attendees. Overall, there’s a general sense amongst its supporters that the Group represents the best way to build the strength of developing nations and challenge Western overreach into the affairs of other countries. Meanwhile, as more countries seek to align with the BRICs, the Group’s ability to shape global norms, policies and alliances seem likely to grow. But while there are good arguments to suggest that the BRICS group could well become a significant alternative bloc in global politics, there are also strong reasons to suggest that it won’t become an alternative force. First, the group lacks a natural cohesion.
Unlike the West, which is grouped around shared values and a belief in liberal democracy, the BRICS have no unified or unifying outlook. The members have significant political, economic and cultural differences. Indeed, several members are even adversaries. As well as having a long-standing border dispute that occasionally flares up in violence, China and India have become geopolitical opponents. Indeed, while India may cooperate with China in the BRICS group, it’s also part of the Quad, a new security and defence bloc including Japan, Australia and the United States that’s specifically designed to limit China’s influence in the Indian and Pacific Oceans.
Looking ahead, There are also tensions between current and future members. For example, Iran and Azerbaijan have a strained relationship. Likewise, Iran and Saudi Arabia, notwithstanding a Chinese-brokered peace deal, also have a long history of tension.
More generally, while the group may have found common ground in some areas, there are odds in others. For example, unlike the West, There’s no overarching sense of cohesion when tackling critical global security challenges. While China and Iran may be supporting Russia over the war in Ukraine, many others are taking a far less vocal position. And while Iran remains bitterly opposed to Israel and South Africa has brought a genocide case against it at the International Court of Justice, others have far better relations with the country.
All this limits the ability of the group to speak with one voice. Contrast this with the high degree of Western cohesion on these issues. But it doesn’t end there. The group also has other shortcomings. For a start, despite having established several institutions, it still lacks the structures and coherence one would expect to see from a major international organisation. While it may hold international summits, it doesn’t have the permanent bodies that match the European Union or even NATO. which maintained large secretariat overseeing day-to-day cooperation. Meanwhile, the group faces the challenge of building and maintaining relevance in an increasingly complex and diverse international environment.
While the West comes together around a few key organisations that cement their mutual ties, the members of the BRICS group can join many other regional and international bodies such as the African Union, ASEAN and the Non-Aligned Movement. At the same time, Other bodies exist that provide an arguably better approach to dealing with the West. Rather than taking a confrontational approach, as many believe the BRICS does, other forums offer a way for the world’s largest countries to engage more constructively. A good example is the G20, which includes BRICS members India, China and Brazil, alongside the United States, Japan and leading European states. This becomes even more important if you consider whilst certain BRICS members are ostracised by the West and under sanctions such as Iran and Russia, for others economic cooperation with the West remains a cornerstone of their prosperity.
Finally, while many countries do indeed want to join the group, others are much more cautious. Not least of all because the group is also widely seen as an emerging group of authoritarian states. While it may talk about the mistreatment of many Many would point out that many of the group’s members have little compunction about mistreating their own citizens. All this seemingly dilutes the impact that the BRICS group can have on global politics.
Summary: Rather than becoming the pre-eminent voice for the Global South, the group is, in many ways, just one amongst many competing voices. So, is the BRICS group a challenger to Western domination? The answer is yes and no. In one way, the group is, by its very nature, defined as opposition to the West. And this certainly gives it a powerful position for many other countries.
However, one also senses that this is where it really starts and ends. The countries are united by the fact that they aren’t the West, rather than by a unified vision of what they want to be as a group. While this may give them a degree of cohesion at one level, it seems superficial. especially as several members maintain workable, if not good, economic, political and diplomatic ties to the West. Of course, none of this is to say that the group can’t or won’t become increasingly prominent actor in global affairs. In an increasingly divided world, the Bricks may indeed become a substantial player. But for now, it seems unlikely to develop a genuinely significant role in international relations beyond being a forum.
