The annual BRICS summit, hosted this year by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, once again gathered the usual suspects: Russia's Vladimir Putin, China's Xi Jinping, and a collection of leaders from nations ostensibly seeking an alternative to the West's economic and political architecture. The stated agenda, covering trade, investment, and global conflicts, hardly masks the underlying tensions and fundamental disunity that plague this disparate group. To interpret this gathering as a formidable challenge to the established international order would be to engage in precisely the kind of wishful thinking that strongmen, and those who enable them, rely upon.
Beneath the predictable pronouncements of a "multipolar world" and "de-dollarization," the reality of BRICS is far more prosaic. It is a grouping of convenience, each member pursuing its own national interests, often at cross-purposes. China, with its economic might and strategic ambitions, views BRICS as another platform to project its influence, particularly in the Global South, and to chip away at American primacy. Russia, a pariah state under international sanctions, clutches at any opportunity for perceived legitimacy and an economic lifeline, even if it means playing a junior partner to Beijing. For both, BRICS offers a veneer of multilateralism for their revisionist agendas.
India, the current host, walks a delicate tightrope. While New Delhi seeks greater autonomy in its foreign policy and access to diverse markets, it remains wary of China's expansionism, particularly along their shared border. Its participation in BRICS is less an endorsement of a new world order and more a hedging strategy, a pragmatic calculation to maintain leverage while still engaging with Western democracies. The idea that India would enthusiastically embrace a bloc dominated by Beijing and Moscow, with whom it has serious geopolitical friction, is a strategic fallacy.
Then there are the other members, often treated as mere footnotes in the grand pronouncements. Brazil and South Africa, both facing domestic economic challenges, participate largely out of a desire for increased trade and investment, and a seat at a table that purports to challenge Western dominance. Their commitment to the bloc’s more overtly anti-Western rhetoric often feels opportunistic, particularly when juxtaposed with their significant economic ties to Europe and North America. Their inclusion often serves to provide an illusion of geographic and ideological breadth, rather than deep-seated strategic conviction.
The ongoing conflicts, particularly Russia’s brutal war in Ukraine, expose the inherent contradictions within BRICS. While Russia seeks endorsement or, at the very least, non-condemnation for its aggression, other members, like India and Brazil, have been careful to maintain a semblance of neutrality, if only to preserve their own diplomatic and economic options. There is no unified BRICS foreign policy, nor is there any coherent security architecture that could genuinely challenge existing alliances like NATO. Defence budgets within the bloc are a telling indicator: while China significantly outspends most of its rivals, the collective military power and interoperability of BRICS nations remain largely theoretical, a far cry from the integrated capabilities of Western alliances.
Economically, the much-touted "de-dollarization" remains largely aspirational. While member states are keen to increase trade in local currencies, the sheer liquidity, stability, and global acceptance of the U.S. dollar mean that any wholesale shift is decades, if not generations, away. The BRICS New Development Bank, while a notable initiative, is still dwarfed by established institutions like the World Bank and the IMF, and its operations reflect the varying interests of its member states.
Ultimately, the BRICS summit, like its predecessors, serves as a platform for photo opportunities and joint statements that paper over profound disagreements. It is a useful mechanism for its authoritarian members, Russia and China, to project an image of broad international support for their challenge to the West. For others, it is a transactional arrangement, a means to an end, not an end in itself. To confuse this loose affiliation of convenience with a cohesive, ideologically aligned front capable of dismantling the existing global order is to misunderstand the fundamental dynamics of international power and the self-serving nature of its primary architects. The West should remain vigilant, but not succumb to overblown anxieties about a club that struggles for internal coherence.