How an expanded BRICS could lead the world instead of the waning West
- Adding new members to the grouping would fragment the world on a scale not seen since the Cold War and amplify the new era of ‘vertical globalisation’
- The US would not be at the centre of geopolitics for the first time since World War II, and even France may be persuaded to join
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of cooperation as a governance model has set a new tone of how the group views its role in the world. From currencies and payment mechanisms to supply chains and transport infrastructure, Russian President Vladimir Putin talked about what is possible and is in the works.
Take global food shortages, for example. Argentina is the world’s second-largest exporter of corn, after the United States. Saudi Arabia, through its investment vehicle the Saudi Agricultural and Livestock Investment Company, owns 35 per cent of Olam Agri, one of the world’s largest suppliers of cacao, rice and coffee.
Alongside global food shortages, the world is also grappling with an energy crunch. Consider that Russia and Saudi Arabia together produce almost 20 million barrels of oil a day, but so far there has been no group that brings together oil exporters and importers. BRICS+ could change that.
Include the renewable energy production of nations such as India and China and BRICS+ could set global energy production and prices for everything from oil to natural gas and solar power.
Regardless of the role BRICS+ chooses to play globally, the expansion of the group would lead to immense changes in how the world works.
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This isn’t just about raising interest rates. If BRICS+ nations coordinate monetary policy, it could extend into areas such as dealing with shadow economies. These have so far been areas of domestic policy. Soon, they might become part of foreign policy.
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the West has had the goal of isolating Russia. With BRICS+, that strategy could fall apart. To deal with what’s happening in the world, it could be BRICS+ rather than the Group of 7 that creates solutions for everything from food security and monetary policy to energy production.
Also, part of the potential of BRICS+ lies in the fact that it is a small and exclusive group; as it grows bigger, it risks losing its effectiveness and becoming another G20.
Finally, BRICS+ would have to perform a balancing act with other groups, especially the Quad and I2U2, a new US-led group featuring India, Israel and the United Arab Emirates, focused on West Asia. This could be complicated as India is a member of all three groups.
As the Ukraine war intensifies, a new competition has begun over who will lead the world. BRICS+ is the first salvo in this new battle for global power, but it will certainly not be the last.
Abishur Prakash is a co-founder and geopolitical futurist at the Centre for Innovating the Future (CIF), an advisory firm based in Toronto, Canada