Yves here. Our recent discussion of the Syrian collapse and what if anything it might signify for BRICS produced very insightful comments, one of which from reader hk we are hoisting below. While we are very sympathetic to the aims of BRICS, we remain doubtful as to whether BRICS will live up to these aspirations, although it does seem set to achieve an important near-term goal, that of setting up systems to facilitate bi-lateral currency transactions, allowing participating countries to bypass the dollar for trade.
Our concern has been and remains that there is a fundamental conflict: The multi-polarity impulse at its core is about strengthening national sovereignity. Yet if BRICS is to have any muscle, member nations will need to concede some sovereignity to suprrnational entities and/or rules. Recall, for instance, the long-standing issue of trade and resulting financial imbalances. Parties that participate in bi-lateral trade with their own currencies will often find one member of the pair accumulating more in the way of currency and financial assets than it deems worthwhile. Keynes’ answer was the bancor system, which included punishments for both sustained creditor (surplus) and deficit (debtor) nations. But accepting those economic strictures is a diminution of sovereignity.
We also pointed out that when Putin threw down the multipolarity gauntlet, at the Munich Security Conference, he called first and foremost for a new global security architecture. Again, in the BRICS context, that would mean surrendering some control over national armed forces in the name of the global regime.
Some commenters, notably Alexander Mercouris, who was kind enough to mention our post, questioned that these issues were really a concern, since the Global South has more population and controls more resources and manufacturing capacity, and thus would and could dominate without having to compromise on BRICS ideals. In other words, principles and loose coordination could still carry the day with a bigger and more rapidly growing bloc.
But reader hk pointed out that the so-called Collective West, even in its diminishing state, has far more ability to mobilize its many capabilities, and thus can and will continue to punch above its weight. By contrast, it is contrary to notions of what BRICS amounts to coordinate closely. particularly when there is likely to be consensus only on high level aims, meaning it will not be obvious how to operationalize them. From reader hk:
I suppose the problem is that the West, fwiw, is committed to a proactive program of doing certain things, while the BRICS and its hopefuls are not. The former have an agenda–we may think they are illegal and/or immoral, wasteful, and all that, but they do want to take things, control things, and so forth, and they are directing their energy and their resources at achieving these goals. In pursuit of these goals, they are organized hierarchically–the clique in Washington (whoever they are exactly) formulates the goals, use their control over institutions to direct the resources, plan out what they are going to be doing, and issue the orders to their underlings who carry them out more or less faithfully (or get replaced for daring to stop them.) The analogue is unfortunate, but one thing that has been consistently pointed out as to why Germany and its coalition, despite the lack of resources, was able to punch above their collective weight was that they were goals driven in their purpose and were highly hierarchical in their organization: everything was directed from Berlin and there was little that Budapest, Sofia, or even Vienna (WW1) or Rome (WW2) could do about them, other than obeying. Even near the end of its power, those who dared to defy them too close to German power suffered consequences (the ouster of Horthy, the crushing of the Slovak uprising, and the assiassination of US-appointed mayor of Aachen, etc).BRICS is neither a “goal-driven” nor a hierarchical organization. In fact, it was created in opposition to them. They do not want want to be subordinated to someone’s design but they are not really agreed on what they want to do about it–other than they do not want to be subordinated. While this can and does potentially make it more attractive, it still means that it cannot easily function without exceptional diplomacy at its core: it has to formulate some set of goals/aims/guidelines (which, by necessity, will need to be loose and milquetoast, at least in their formulation) that all or most members can buy into and herd the members along into doing what they can and would to achieve them, knowing that they will all cheat and try to take advantage of others and, by the nature of the enterprise, you can’t punish them. This is a bit analogous to the politics of Allied powers during WW2 (and also WW1). We also know that both kinda failed (although the victories cloud how badly they failed.) Britain and France were very bad at cooperation during WW1. There was no cooperation worth speaking of between USSR and the Western powers during WW2 and the Western powers were able to get along because everyone depended on USA for, well, everything and the team of FDR, Marshall, and Eisenhower were very good at diplomacy. Maybe Putin, Lavrov, Wang Yi, etc are modern day incarnations of FDR, Marshal, and Eisenhower, but with a major problem: neither Russia nor China is quite the analogue of USA. China comes close, but not quite. I’d suggest that they are more like France and UK during WW1–friendly at “personal” level (like King Edward VII loved everything about France), aware that their medium to long term prosperity and, to a degree, even survival are tied to each other, but also regarding each other with justified suspicion (anyone who says otherwise is delusional.) even while cooperating closely.
What do all these say about prospects of BRICS? Not a whole lot, I guess, other than it could go anywhere, but any sort of success will require both keeping the goals modest and widely acceptable and exceptionally delicate diplomacy to keep everyone more or less happy, chiefly by not being asked to do too much. It’s not a “revolutionary” movement, but a coalition of “not doing.”
To carry the analogy further, what was the situation that faced UK and France in Fall, 1939? I suppose the Germany-equivalent of today didn’t exactly conquer “Poland”: Syria (the Poland equivalent) has been gobbled up by Turkey (playing the role of USSR, I guess?) and Israel (kinda like Germany, I suppose–I wanted to be silly and call it Slovakia, and Netanyahu does sort of look like Josef Tiso if you squint a bit). The best that France and UK could do was to engage in what people called the “Phoney War” and ridiculous and magical schemes in which they could somehow beat Germany (and USSR, too) on the cheap, precisely becaue they couldn’t think of a way to beat Germany directly and they suspected that the other would abandon them to bear disproportionate cost (they weren’t too wrong about that–especially the French). One should hope that Putin and Xi are better than Chamberlain and Daladier, but I also tend to think the latter two got bad rap from the people who eagerly look to history to draw wrong lessons for today.
The post below was republished by InfoBRICS, even though it comes from the Mercator Institute, which was counter-sanctioned by China for spreading anti-China “lies” after the EU imposed sanctions on Chinese over alleged mistreatment of Muslim minorities.
Note that the article describes marked differences of view with BRICS as the posture it should take towards Western countries and entities. As we pointed out yesterday, the Kazan Declaration depicted BRICS as seeking to work with many important Western institutions, for instance, endorsing the notion that the IMF continue to serve as the center of the global financial safety net. And when you get to the very end, the author points out that this fracture line can be exploited by making some concessions to BRICS’ member concerns about Western domination of major international institutions, as well as cultivating relations with relations with Western-friendly nations on an individual basis.
By Eva Seiwert, an analyst and project coordinator at Mercator Institute for China Studies. Originally published at Mercator Institute for China Studies; cross posted from InfoBRICS
The first BRICS+ Summit after the group’s enlargement in January 2024 allowed Russian host Vladimir Putin to style himself as a non-isolated world leader, but the lack of substantial developments on core topics highlights the disparities among its nine member states’ ambitions for the organization, rather than their unity. While BRICS must be taken seriously as a growing economic organization comprising numerous Global South countries, it would be wrong to interpret it as one pole of a two-sided geopolitical competition between China and Russia and the West.
The summit in Kazan which took place from October 22-24 received much international attention, partly due to Putin’s presentation of it as one of the “largest-scale foreign policy events ever” in Russia and the admittedly impressive list of participants. Besides eight of the nine full member states (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, UAE) present (Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took part online due toa recent head injury), over 20 other countries were represented, many of them heads of state. Prominent guests included Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, and United National Secretary-General António Guterres. As is common at multilateral summits, several leaders also met bilaterally on the sidelines of the summit, with Putin having 17 bilateral meetings on his agenda. Noteworthy was the meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday, which was the first between the two leaders in five years, facilitated by a breakthrough agreement on the Sino-Indian border dispute, one day before the summit began.
Non-Western or Anti-Western BRICS?
Many Western observers view BRICS as an increasingly anti-Western organization, noting that the summit was held in warmongering Russia, while the group welcomed Iran as a full member in January 2024 and its growth is taking place against the backdrop of China’s geopolitical contest with the US. It is true that the BRICS countries share an explicit ambition of diminishing Western dominance in global governance and strengthening the international influence of Global South countries. Establishing a “more just and democratic world order” has been a core interest emphasized by all members, old and new. BRICS as a group also criticizes Western countries’ use of sanctions and wants to increase the use of local currencies in member states’ financial transactions to decrease their reliance on the dollar.
But reading such measures as an organization-wide proclamation of distinct anti-Western sentiment is a gross oversimplification. While arguably true for some – above all Russia, Iran and to a lesser extent China – other member states do not wish to be seen as part of an anti-Western club. In fact, members such as India, Brazil and the UAE continue to work closely with Western partners – expressed among others in India’s participation in the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue alongside Australia, Japan and the United States. These countries regularly push back on initiatives that are not in line with their own foreign policy agendas. For instance, earlier this month, heavily sanctioned Russia hosted a meeting of BRICS finance ministers at which Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov called for creating an alternative to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as well as a BRICS rating agency, a reinsurance company and a commodities exchange. However, most BRICS finance ministers and central bank chiefs did not even bother attending and sent only junior officials instead.
Summit declaration similarly calls for reforming the Bretton Woods institutions, rather than creating full-blown alternatives. Additionally, the member states agreed “to discuss and study the feasibility of establishment of an independent cross-border settlement and depositary infrastructure, BRICS Clear, an initiative to complement the existing financial market infrastructure, as well as BRICS independent reinsurance capacity, including BRICS (Re)Insurance Company, with participation on a voluntary basis” (emphasis added) – an arguably lukewarm response to Russia’s initiatives. Even when it comes to reducing the primacy of the dollar in international trade – something most member states generally favor – there are many differences on how this can be done, and the expected rise of China’s renminbi as an alternative to the dollar does not sit well with co-member India and others.
Taking Members’ Interests Seriously Without Overegging the Group’s Influence
BRICS have indeed seen a rise in applicant states and comprise impressive economic numbers. Its member countries account for 29 percent of the world’s GDP and 40 percent of crude oil production. But there is no need to fear the development of a major geopolitical anti-Western bloc. For this, their interests are far too diverse and include too many countries that value the organization only as a non-Western rather than anti-Western group.
Europe should focus on taking seriously the criticism that binds together all BRICS+ countries, ‘non-Western’ and ‘anti-Western’ alike, which includes Western states’ unfair dominance in core international institutions that no longer reflects contemporary international power realities. But let’s not overinterpret the supposed ‘threat’ of this loose platform. Considering BRICS’ appeal as an alternative to Western-led institutions, there is a clear need for European countries to reassess their strategies for engagement with countries in the Global South. Maintaining and nurturing relationships with individual BRICS countries – like German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is currently doing on his visit to New Delhi for the 7th Germany-India Intergovernmental Consultations – is essential to keeping BRICS+ from ever becoming a truly anti-Western pole.
I think this is the buried leade. The major push factor from the dollar system is now that it cannot be trusted. Countries and individuals have no way of predicting when or why they may fall under a sanction which now includes having their assets seized directly. The utility of the dollar as a reserve currency has been indelibly tarnished. If Bricks did not exist it would be necessary to create it.
BRICS+ is described by the leading nations within it as an umbrella organisation which allows nations within the ‘blocs’ outside the western dominated ones to talk and agree strategies to combine their voices within existing structures like the UN. It has or is developing other practical mechanisms that lead from those agreed strategies like the system for bi-lateral trading using their own currencies ( which in turn is leading to digital processes). it has never talked about a military arm etc, I don’t think anyone seriously thinks that likely.
Now people may consider this inadequate in facing down the ‘Empire’, but that happens elsewhere.
Two of the blocs which are overlapping are EAEU and SCO. EAEU has most definitely the capability and possibly the desire to combine military resources, and SCO has not exactly rejected the idea. EAEU is perfectly capable of defending the ‘hinterland’ plus a fair bit of the surrounding territory from the ‘Empire’. Unlike the Empire it has no ambitions beyond that, which I think is what most people miss. It wouldn’t for instance get involved in rescuing Syria from disintegration, but it may well intercede if say Kyrgyzstan was seriously threatened because of its antimony deposits.
The number of foreign bases etc etc is not their game and probably never will be. you don’t have to successfully confront the Empire by looking like the Empire. Patience really is a virtue.
It’s grimly amusing that what the US (genuinely I think) sees as Russian and Chinese sabre rattling – is in fact entirely a defensive response to very aggressive US actions.
Both Taiwan and Ukraine could have been solved through diplomacy – and Russia/China clearly want that. The barrier is the US, which sees them as useful tools. If China does invade (or more likely blockade) Taiwan – it will be because the US has given it no other choice. Practically they’d be fine with a Taiwan that’s independent so long as they’re able to house a Chinese military base there, and control their borders/waters. And in a world without the US, they’d probably not even be super concerned about that.
I am not so charitable.
The US does not care if China’s and Russia’s responses are as measured as they can be given the givens and entirely warranted. The US does not want competition even from regional powers (hence the campaign v. Iran). It wants some form of a strategic retreat by both of them, no matter how unlikely that seems. So in the neocons’ eyes, diplomacy is out because it would entail the US making concessions.
That is without doubt the major problem the world confronts. Its not that the US is not negotiation capable, its because it just doesn’t want to. You are either for us or against us. Supplicant or enemy.
…and that is why Russia’s hyper-sonic missiles are a better investment than computer ‘nano-chips’. In the end you must give the Bully a bloody nose.
The BRIC’s can see how important Russia is to multi-polarity.
The West, the US, preaches democracy and human rights but practices economic and political coercion through sanctions and military force. Its motto might be “You will do it our way and you will like it.” Implicit is we will whack you upside the head if you disobey. The BRICS promotes sovereignty and consensus, cooperation through negotiation. You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours. This does not mean that the larger and more powerful in the BRICS do not have greater influence. They do. It does mean that goals are reached by agreement or at worst with an open hand, not a clenched fist. Perhaps this is naive but this is the appearance … and I can well remember when the US did not stomp about the world like a spoiled child demanding all the candy.
I don’t think BRICs promotes anything, and I think the idea that BRICs is intended to fight the US is a mistake.
BRICs is intended to be an organization that is both independent of the US, and finds ways to do things independently of the US/G7. And that is a very different thing.
The reason that there is a focus on sovereignty and consensus is pragmatic, because China in particular is so much more powerful than the others, they have to reiterate that they are not seeking to replace the US with China. Because all of those countries (including Russia) fear that to some degree.
It’s possible to imagine another world where the US was a lot smarter, and BRICs didn’t come into being. It’s the US elites inability to let go, and in particular their inability to let go of their ability to meddle (which they’re addicted to), which has forced BRICs into being. None of these countries want to replace the global financial and trading architecture because it mostly works.
“any sort of success will require both keeping the goals modest and widely acceptable and exceptionally delicate diplomacy to keep everyone more or less happy, chiefly by not being asked to do too much ”.
The bare minimum, being a willingness and ability to face down perpetual regime change, on threat of cultural erasure. That last bit is a new one for me. This tactic of mass murdering the intelligentsia, as determined by Ai, is potent, and has effects in orders of magnitude. It is literally eugenics. Makes one wonder what the machine thinks of you. Like, did you make the cut? *shudders* I wonder if IBM is helping this time?
Western discussions of Russia & China are frustrating because people in the west are incapable of understanding their perspective. Instead what we see is projection – what would we in the west do if we were in their position. And of course we would do is try and become America, or failing that undermine America (because America is so awesome/evil).
But if you step back, it’s not terribly difficult to understand what they want, because they don’t hide it. They want to be left alone, and they want economic freedom. And if you look at their focus neutrally (rather than through an imperialist, or anti-imperialist lens), this explains all of their actions. They would be fine with America, and indeed tried for years to reach accommodation, if it respected these wishes. The US turned on Russia when it was clear that Putin was no longer going to let them loot Russian resources. The US turned on China when it was clear that China was not going to follow the submissive path of Korea, Germany and Japan. Both countries tried really hard for years to accommodate the west, while still maintaining those boundaries – and it was only when it was clear that this was impossible that they turned away from the west.
If you look at the US from their perspective, then what you see above all else is an overly controlling paternalistic figure, that has a manichean view of global politics. There are the forces of light (and western anti-imperialists simply invert that), and the forces of darkness. When the US cannot find a force of darkness, it will often create one. Yes the US exploits its dominance for economic reasons, but above all else its elite love being THE GOOD GUYS (Republicans and Democrats alike). They love lecturing other countries, they like being able to mould other cultures into their own image. And they cannot leave things alone – they have to meddle, they have to control, they have to ‘fix’. Taiwan is an easily fixable problem, as is N. Korea – the issue is that the US doesn’t want to fix those things as it gives them an excuse to meddle.
And it’s laughable when the west criticize Russia and China for perfectly rational fears. Of course Russia and China are obsessed with their borders – because the US keeps violating them. China would probably be less touchy about Taiwan, if the US didn’t keep sending it’s ships through the strait. But obviously the US has to do this, because it has to demonstrate dominance.
So I think if you see BRICs less as a coalition of anti-imperialistic periphery powers, and more as a talking shop of people looking for ways to construct trading and political agreements free of US interference, it’s easier to see what it might become and where it’s weakenesses are. There’s no ideological (or even strategic) unity, because none of the members have that, or even particularly desire that. And all would be perfectly fine with the US dominating global finance if it did so in a neutral fashion – none of them really want that role, it’s just being forced upon them.
A further point to something I wrote above:
In the context of Syria, I don’t think that Syria was ever a core BRICs issue, or even a core issue for any BRICs country except (maybe) Iran.
Russia’s involvement in Syria was partly historical (they were long term allies, and many Syrian elites had studied in Russian military colleges, so there were ties), partly military (though I think the naval base is more ‘nice to have’ than ‘must have’) and partly as a way of demonstrating that Russia could be a good ally. There were also costs (they need to maintain good relations with Israel and Turkey because of Azerbaijan and central Asia), and as Assad moved away from them their commitment waned. Because the west is incapable of thinking strategically (any loss, no matter how inconsequential, is seen as existential loss of face), it hasn’t occurred to anyone that Russia would be willing to take a tactical loss if the objective was no longer justified by their overall strategy.
Iran’s commitment was more strategic, because Syria was part of their plan for regional dominance and it helped with their ally Hezbollah. Their foreign policy aims have taken a hit, but it only weakens their ability to project power in the region. Domestically they’re fine (have you seen a map of Iran – they’re not going anywhere), and getting sucked into a civil war even more than they have been could have been disastrous. There’s a loss of face, but that’s all it is. And in a couple of years when Syria breaks up, and Israel is sucked into another disaster of its own making, nobody will remember it.
But if you look at US interests, what has been gained? Very little. Yes they f***ed some stuff up, but so what. Syria is destroyed, but that could well destabilize the ME in ways that badly damage it’s interests. Noone in the west has noticed, but Libya’s collapse was badly destabilizing for the entire region. And Israel seems determined to make the problem worse (and it’s long term interests even worse).
And this gets to the core problem with the US as a global power. It’s nihilistic. It doesn’t really have a strategy beyond a vague desire to remain top dog. It sees any resistance as something to break, when a far smarter country would have embraced Russia and found a way to let them have what they wanted, while making sure all their resources came to the west. Instead they forced Russia and China into an alliance. A smarter country would have found ways to gently direct China into becoming Japan 2.0. Identify ways to increase their dependence upon the west. Make it easier for their economy to become financialized. Open up even more US universities to their elites (and so subvert them). Instead…
And the US war on Iran is simply infantile. Makes zero strategic sense. If anything demonstrates why the US century is doomed to end – it’s the American pointless war with Iran. So easy to make them an ally, and instead they’ve undermined so many of their interests in their doomed attempts to destroy the country. And you see this time and time again. The US was so determined to humiliate Russia that it destroyed it’s strongest ally (Europe). The pointless war on Venezuela and Cuba has strengthened S. American determination to be free of US bullying. They’re creating the conditions for own irrelevance. Baffling.
Embrace and extend. The US used to get this. Now… not so much.
The US just demonstrated that it can throw a small country in a geographically valuable location (borders with Israel and Lebanon) against the wall.
And the relevance to BRICS is misconstrued. Admittedly Assad made poor decisions, although Dimitry Orlov argues he had been planning to exit for years. All of his family became fluent in Russian, which takes 6 years. Fluency in Russian is a condition of obtaining citizenship if the Assads deem that necessary.
Alexander Mercouris said that Russia and later China came to Syria and offered substantial economic assistance. I don’t know if then or later but Russia also offered more military support. All were rebuffed. Recaps from Iranian officials say they had only an advisory role (note that often does include special forces and some weaponry). But experts also observed that Syria moved away from Iran and focused on forming stronger ties with other Gulf states.
As Chas Freeman (recall, former ambassador to Saudi Arabia) pointed out, Assad turned down Russia and China due to a desire to preserve his independence…the same motivation attributed to BRICS. One can’t be sure, but that also looks to have been his reason for distancing himself from Iran in favor of the Gulf States.
Given that he lived in a bad neighborhood and that Russian support had been critical to winning the civil war, this was suicidally bad reasoning, at least as far as survival of Syria as any kind of state was concerned. WTF good are the Gulf States as far as muscle is concerned?
https://english.news.cn/20230922/6c629b0667aa49dc902249b4c2a6012c/c.html
September 22, 2023
Xi, Assad jointly announce China-Syria strategic partnership
HANGZHOU — Chinese President Xi Jinping and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Friday jointly announced the establishment of a China-Syria strategic partnership.
The two presidents met in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, ahead of the opening of the 19th Asian Games scheduled for Saturday.
Syria was one of the first Arab countries that established diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China, and was one of the countries that co-sponsored the resolution to restore the lawful seat of the People’s Republic of China in the United Nations, Xi said.
Over the 67 years since the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries, the China-Syria relationship has stood the test of changes in the international situation, and their friendship has grown stronger over time, he said…
It’s as if while the powers that be were deregulating the financial markets they simultaneously deregulated their own iq levels and any need for coherence in foreign policy.
I read hk‘s comments on Wednesday. Since then I read the Jonathan Cooke article that was features in Links yesterday about the Neocon strategy (as represented in A Clean Break / Seven countries in five years etc.). I read hk again now and find the comments deeply chilling. A purpositive plan for how to use the resources of the state and its allies has a great advantage over ethical critique of war and colonialism, namely that the already existing hierarchical organizations reward the most ambitious and effective sociopaths. Ethical political backlash against the catastrophes brought about by Neoconservative ambitions can (sometimes did) slow things down but the purpositive plan doesn’t go away, it is so rewarding to those who seek power it’s almost obvious.
If I imagine a theory in which an abstract idea of popular moral activism/critique on the one hand in opposition to, on the other, raw selfishness expressed in a purpositive plan to use military, commercial, financial and diplomatic power, the plan has durability, regardless how evil it may be. It doesn’t go away even when popular opposition is successful, it accommodates itself and maybe has to slow down for a while, and can be used again later when the opportunity presents itself.
I think I read somewhere that Rosa Luxemburg emphasized the need for both education and organization. We are good at critique, which is an important part of education, but they are better at organization. They have a plan.
So thanks to hk and Yves for clarifying remarks despite how gloomy my thoughts became on reading them.
The ideation, design, build, launch (test), integrate feedback, iterate/pivot cycle for plucky upstarts facing off against dominant incumbents is instructive in the context of the teething challenges BRICS is experiencing (and was always going to experience given that the imperialist west wasn’t going to sail quietly into the sunset while rolling out the red carpet for a new multipolar world). The general tone here seems to be that BRICS is driven by high-minded ideals alone and lacks the cold, calculated pragmatism needed to make tactical adjustments in response to the countermeasures being flung at it from all angles as the hegemon and its vassals increasingly flail about in a desperate attempt to maintain global control.
I don’t believe this to be the case, BRICS is putting its gumption to the test here, there will be setbacks, some members will dally (or defect) as the carrot and stick efforts to re-attract/coerce them back into the imperialist fold intensify. IMHO the choices facing global south nations in the years and decades ahead will be:
1. Strategic concession of some sovereignty to a centralized power structure to cast off the yoke of imperial oppression
OR
2. Boot on the neck tyranny of western imperialism and all that entails (neocolonialist plunder of resources, cultural erasure, being looked down upon, imposed “values”, sword of democles of sanctions to punish any dissent etc)
Over the span of decades, the west’s increasing belligerence as it loses influence will engender the “last mile of conviction” for, and act as a clarion call for, global south nations to gravitate towards the latter. Will be the road be long and rocky? Of course, and anybody who thinks otherwise is delusional.