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.
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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.
I think this: “Russia’s hyper-sonic missiles are a better investment than computer ‘nano-chips’.” is much less important than control of the info-sphere. Ya can’t bomb everyone. But, you can control the information/propaganda that a public is being fed all over the world. We all know Gaggle is a tool of the US St. Dept. and the “powers that be”. Gaggle is every where from Austin to Ankara literally every village and large city. Look how well they’ve duped even the (theoretically) literate American public. Some examples: Ukraine, Covid, sports uber alles, etc…….
It’s easier to make hypersonic missiles than to take control of the information/propaganda/infosphere. They are “Plan B”.
Theoretically literate American public is among the easiest to dupe, because they have been conditioned to trust the TV. They have been brainwashed so thoroughly, that even the “smart ones” think that they are fighting the “commies”.
I did not read this, and I’m glad my assessment below is fair.
“So in the neocons’ eyes, diplomacy is out because it would entail the US making concessions.”
Reading Chinese state commentaries, in Chinese, shows a recognition of the intransigence and showing is a notice that “belligerence” can and will be dealt with.
I agree the US doesn’t want competition – but where we disagree is that I think the US elite sees such competition as both immoral and irrational. And as a result they respond to their enemies as if they were both immoral and irrational.
It’s possible to imagine a US that would brook no competition, but could see clearly what Russia and China are. But that’s not the world we live in, and I think it’s that inability to think sensibly about their enemies is what will doom the US.
A superb comment. Reading articles and accompanying comments about China in the New York Times and I am actually frightened and that appears the intent. Remember how Secretary Blinken went to Alaska to meet the Chinese representatives, and left for Alaska by threatening China and began the meeting by threatening.
Blinken was told not to speak at China from a position of strength, but refused to understand:
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-03-19/First-session-of-China-U-S-talks-in-Alaska-concludes-YKnP3QNxEQ/index.html
March 19, 2021
China reiterates ‘mutual respect’ as foundation for Alaska talks
“Let me be clear that in front of the Chinese side, the United States does not have the qualification to say that it wants to speak to China from a position of strength,” Yang emphasized…
To me it seems the US considers the rest of the world squatting on resources that rightfully belong to the US.
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.
There was a clip with journalists at US department of state laughing out loud at the spokeperson assertion that US respects ICC…
There was a clip with journalists at US department of state laughing out loud at the spokesperson assertion that US respects ICC… *
* International Criminal Court
“I keep seeing this same theme in these threads, perfectly rational of course, that the US is ‘unreasonable’ or otherwise irrational and needs to not pursue expansionism… but it’s not that the US is projecting, we understand perfectly well what it would require to live in harmony, and reject all of that. Our ethos has been active counterrevolution for 60 years precisely because we identify what you want! That irony makes us the most unlikely and effective Marxists in history, lol. So it’s not that we don’t understand you, it’s that you (Putin being a documented example) don’t understand us. We mostly just don’t care. Die if you must. We will manifest destiny, come whatever reality you propose. God didn’t grant us these borders and great plains and rivers and oceans to play it humble.”
End Act II
As an aside, there may be trouble amongst the US audience if Jesus does not present Himself shortly, said He was on his way…
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…
Well actually the US demonstrated that it can weaken a country sufficiently that Turkey can then throw them against the wall. At least so long as that country made catastrophically bad decisions, was run by a weak, pro-western, idiot who alienated his allies. And it still took 13 years.
Time was this would have taken a couple of years, and the US would have been the ones crowning the new leader. This is more Grenada than Gulf War I. And it could easily turn into the Lebanese Civil war, or worse. Those Israeli soldiers in Syria look like awfully tempting targets.
It’s the terms of that ‘assistance’ we are not privy to Yves. Assad is likely, intellectually anyway, alienated from his people. The tales of Syrian dysfunction tell a story of incompatibility with his Western modalities. He likely always shared the Russian frustrations to some extent, and concluded, as they did, that his regime would not adapt to the crises which beset them in any meaningful way. Turning on the money spigot would only further reward failure, and reform would necessitate, essentially what HTS is doing right now, so Assad left it to someone who wants that smoke. This is all, of course, assuming a reasonable level of competence on his part.
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.
First sentence of the last paragraph was meant to read:
“…act as a clarion call for global south nations to gravitate towards the former.”
I am not persuaded and chilled. But that is my experience.
“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).”
While Maritia I Plan subdued Hungary, Maritia II against Romania was not succesful, Romanians doing a “pre-emptive” strike, and turning the arms and joining Soviet Union, with Romania being liberated from German troops in about a month with not much problem (I think the fight to liberate Budapest was longer than that and involved massive casualties and destruction).
US/Israel cannot throw Iran to the wall the way Syrian was. They might want to, but the blood letting and pain would reach the US shores.
It is a war of attrition, and as Stephen Hsu interviewed by Multipolarity said, China’s economy now is 1.5 times US economy, plus its actual productive capacity is bigger than the G7. Also Russia produces in 3 months more weaponry than the entire EU produces, while in 6 months its production is greater than the present German stock.
What can Chinese do if they move on a war economy? Hunt down every Taiwanese, and US soldier and asset with swarms of drones and missiles?
After the attack on Russia in June 1941, it became clear that the Russians will win in the winter of 1941. Stalingrad and Kursk brought that truth home. It became a war of attrition.
The US doesn’t have the military capacity to invade Iran. Even ignoring the other problems. It’s a non-starter.
Nor can the US defeat China in Chinese waters. China would have the home advantage, so it would be difficult for the US even if they had military superiority. Given that the US navy is falling apart, and it doesn’t have the military capacity to sustain a real war, it’s clearly a non-starter.
It’s only really a war in the sense that the US wants to make it one. If the US was simply to stop, and accept that it will have to share the world with new powers, then things would work themselves out and probably to US advantage. But I don’t think either Russia, or China, are hugely interested in fighting the US, or globally dominating anything. The US can exert a huge amount of energy resources in the ME, win and discover that nothing has really changed for China/Russia. Or it can try and fight Russia/China on their home turf (borders of Russia, or industrial policy with China) and they will lose. Their best tools are diplomacy (but unfortunately the US suck at this, and threats don’t work so well when you’re declining), or abusing the financial architecture – but there you run the risk of killing one of your last remaining assets.
This is not a winning strategy for the US
It’s true that the US military is inadequate. However, again, their control of the info space is overwhelming. In Syria it wasn’t boots on the ground (though there were many proxies), it was the slow choking of food, the economy and the subtle yet effective control of what the average Syrian was reading on line. Their will to resist was just worn down, no bombing needed, though it does help clean things up in the end.
You need both reach and credibility for propaganda to be effective. It’s true that the western propaganda machine has unmatched global reach, but what is also unmatched is the rapid loss of credibility it has suffered and continues to suffer. Outside the west, the western mainstream media has fallen from grace as the wool has been removed from people’s eyes, allowing them to see the empire-serving nature of their usual schtick of peddling US state department talking points and calling the whole charade “news”. The last bastions that continue to drive imperialist subversion in the global south are western sponsored think tanks and the NGO industrial complex. Once these get uprooted, the “decay function” of western influence will enter an accelerating, terminal downward slope.
Also, bribery. In every country there are people willing to betray it for a handfull of dollars.
Yes, that was where the qualifier “too close to German power” came from. There were three instances where erstwhile ally of Germany changed sides without too much consequence: Romania, Bulgaria, and Finland. All three share one characteristic: they are rather far from Germany and relatively unimportant strategically (that is, they were not Germany’s neighbors.) So not a whole lot Germany could do about punishing them. Not so if you directly bordered Germany (defined broadly, to include the Reich Protectorate of Bohemia-Moravia, i.e. modern Czechia) and the Soviets were across the Dukla Pass like the Slovaks. Iran is probably more like Romania than Hungary, perhaps. The dominance of the US power is not absolute everywhere, but one does not safely defy US unless you are close enough to potential help (the modern analogue to the Red Army, or maybe it still is the “Red Army.”) to offset whatever power that the other side can project on your soil.
Romania was the main source of oil for Germany… Not strategic, eh?!
True, but also distant. The Red Army was close on hand. (The Slovaks thought the same, but the Soviets were stopped at thw Dukla Pass.)
The Russian and Romanian armies were close on hand too in Budapest, but Germans decided to make a stance. Not for the oil though… Over there it was because they really could not.
Same way US cannot Russia, China, Iran, North Korea.
Wow, Thanks! (Didn’t have time to check on NC until now)
As I think we have discussed previously, the fundamental problem with BRICS is that it does not present a serious ideological alternative, and that means it is doomed to losing any direct confrontation with the West.
What does the West offer? Neoliberal oligarchic capitalism, rich get richer, poor get poorer. Not a good deal for the people. But a very good deal for the elites of other countries, who are given the choice of either agreeing on being middlemen in between their countries’ natural resources and labor productivity and the West, or assassinated, bombed, color revolution-ed, etc., and given that choice, usually choose the former option. Not that they need much convincing or even resist in the first place, they are already naturally inclined towards that path. Because if they chose to run their countries in the people’s interests, they themselves would be poorer. Which is precisely the fundamental asymmetry in incentives that the Western oligarchy has skillfully used to stay on top for so long.
What do BRICS offer? Nothing much different really other than vague notions of “independence”. To the extent something is offered, it is a milder version of the same oligarchic capitalism, just more production and infrastructure than finance focused.
Russia is no longer the USSR, and in fact in some ways (such as its tax code) has been much more neoliberal than the West; in other ways it has preserved some social safety net features of the USSR, but overall it is a neoliberal economy with much, much, much less of a safety net than it used to have.
China is nominally communist, but in reality is capitalist, and it never even had a safety net in the first place — remember, one of the first things that the Soviets did back in the 1920s was to institute a comprehensive state-run free-for-everyone healthcare system. The CPC has been in power for more than seven decades and they still don’t have such a system. Always keep that in mind. But more importantly, they have no interest of exporting their otherwise relatively sane mixed-economy model, they just want to do deals and get access to resources.
India? What is there to even say…
Same for South Africa.
Brazil? Brazil is the epitome of a Latin American oligarchic economy, with obscene wealth inequality and run for the interests of the US. It has never overcome that internally. An alternative to what is it? If anything, Russia was traveling in that direction in the 1990s, and its journey was only arrested, but not really reversed.
Iran? The mullahs did an Islamic revolution, and the current situation is likely better than it would have been without it, but it is still a free market economy with powerful economic interests having major influence on decision making.
Which can always be used to weaken these countries or even turn them, as we saw with Iran over the last six months after their previous president was assassinated.
Now contrast all of the above with the USSR before it was betrayed from within.
The USSR offered an alternative that appealed to the masses of other countries, and it could use the combination of those masses and some sections of the counter-elites to overthrow the local comprador elites that were perfectly fine being cogs in the neocolonial game and then run things differently. This was an alternative attractive enough for people to be willing to die for it in their millions, which they indeed did.
There is nothing remotely like that now with BRICS. Comprador elites are very strong in all of them — China is the most sovereign one, but even in China there are a lot of billionaires and the business elites tend to have close ties with the West, which is clearly having an impact of decision making.
You want to defeat the West? You need people with Lenin/Dzershinsky/Stalin/Mao/Kim/etc. level of ideological clarity, personal conviction and resolve to act.
The current deeply compromised mess of elites with suspect loyalties will not be a problem for the West to play against each other, isolate, and defeat. We are seeing it in action quite clearly now.
Unless something drastically changes, but what would that be?
Following from my previous message above, there is of course the question of whether BRICS even wants to defeat the West, which is of course also the title of the thread — “Anti-Western” or “Non-Western”.
Here is the thing — this is not the choice. The choice is you either fight back or you will be digested.
If you are not attacking, then you are defending by definition, and if you are being attacked without fighting back, then again by default you are losing.
The world has always worked like that, but the temporary resource abundance of the 20th century might have masked that fundamental reality. However, now we are on the downslope of the resource curve, and thus again going back to serious resource scarcity, and the conflicts will only intensify from here on.
I didn’t expect it to play out exactly like that — twenty years ago the default thinking was that first third world countries would be slugging it out over farmland and river flows, and only gradually war would spread to the more developed world, i.e. the West. But that is not what has happened, what we got instead was that:
1) The West launched a campaign of destroying countries with the purpose of lowering consumption there. It is quite clear now in retrospect — the goal wasn’t to do regime change and replace the governments with Western friendly ones. No, just wreck the place, and thus reduce internal consumption, freeing up the resources for export to the West. Iraq, Syria, Libya — those were all relatively developed places with certainly not Western-level consumption rates, but definitely well above Sub-Saharan Africa ones.
This is exactly what happened in Syria — Syria became a net importer of oil a few years before 2011, which is what destabilized it in the first place, but the situation in the last few years was that the US stole the oil, while the country was partitioned, and what was under governmental control had electricity for only a few hours a day. In Iraq and Libya I am ready to bet that per capita resource consumption has decreased quite a bit since they ceased to exist as real states. There is likely a lot more of that to come.
2) Then the West went directly after the largest nuclear power. That definitely wasn’t expected — I always thought that would only come at the very end when everyone was absolutely desperate, but instead this is an early move in the sequence of events.
Which brings us back to the point about being pro-active.
In retrospect, the USSR was doomed the moment Khrushchev started babbling about “peaceful coexistence”. Even though there were another two decades of communism spreading to other countries, but basically once the USSR decided to not try to export its model to the West, it was playing strategic defense, and if you playing strategic defense with no intention of ever switching to strategic offense, you will eventually lose. Which is what happened. By extension, that is what lies ahead in China’s future too.
The BRICS right now are clearly not acting in the way they would be if that lesson was learned, internalized and reflected into a concrete plan for action. The loss of Syria showed it very clearly.
Which is another reason why the whole thing is doomed. And also why it has no choice but to become a real military alliance with teeth and a commitment to seeing the West as a mortal enemy, to be combated everywhere all the time, or, again, they will be isolated, pitted against each other, and defeated.
The West is dwarfed both militarily and economically by the BRICS, but in the same time the West, because it is unified and carrying out orders, will defeat each BRICS individually, even China, and especially a China that just sits back and does nothing. Exactly as user hk explained.
There is no other choice but to unite militarily. I don’t see it happening on the level of BRICS though, you can forget about Indian elites ever doing that, and we don’t even have to waste time discussing the Brazilian elites. Russia-China-Iran-NK is perhaps doable, and that would still be stronger than the West. But even that is quite doubtful. Too much mutual distrust and inability to act pro-actively.
What you are saying makes perfect sense. Except that there is no general war right now. And in a nuclear war, despite of the US posture that they can win, that is really not the case.
BRICS are united. Politically they have stood beside Russia for instance. Economically they have not sanctioned Russia and are having ample economic intercourse with Russia. Just look at the 10 year energy agreement between Russia and India. China shot so far themselves in the foot by not agreeing with a non exploitative contract with the Russians for Power of Siberia II. Even as a security backup they should have done it.
Russia doesn’t need somebody else to fight in this war. It is winning. All the while Europe is degrading. How can US confront Russia with a degraded Europe? A Europe where the social safety net is being slowly dismatled for weapons and military. And the jobless will be invited to join to make a living? As if the rest will stay subdued.
It is clear that South Korea will not join the US in a fight against China.
The numbers don’t add up, even in the long run.
One of my responsibilities is keeping minor government functionaries abreast of what’s happening in China to do which, I must digest, to a granular level, what’s going on in the Middle Kingdom. Having digested practically every document from the Kazan summit, I am not as pessimistic about BRICS as your contributors.
Prior to, during, or since Kazan every BRICS nation has sent a representative from fifty agencies, ranging from BRICS Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Central Bank Governors and National Security Advisors to BRICS Joint Statistical Publications, University Network, Ministers of Education and even a BRICS Youth Summit.
Xi’s brains trust will have gamed BRICS thoroughly and he discussed it thoroughly with Putin. They’re both winners and BRICS will be part of their legacy, willynilly.
All of those 50 conferences will have KPIs and all their reports will reach their heads of state. If all they do is focus on cooperation, they can raise their aggregate productivity by 20%, at negligible cost.
Brics is not anti-anything, but for cooperation between countries and getting out of colonial relationships both political and economic. It also recognises USA and other Western countries as equal partners. But it is against weaponising dollar in global trade wars. The use of national currencies has also started and IMF has also recognised the decreasing role of USdollar as payment currrncy in global trade. Us dollar will, nevertheless, continue to be strong for quite a while.
It is important to listen to the views of the South, especially in Asia, otherwise you stay in the bubble of Western anti-BRICS group think.
In the latest global BRICS meeting, India’s
Modi’s said there is a difference between BRICS and other country groupings (think NATO, QUAD, AUKUS) was startling: “We support dialogue and diplomacy, not war,” Modi said.
And China’s leader Xi Jinping pointed out that “the common march of the Global South towards modernity is a major event in world history”. He also said that BRICS, as a huge bloc of anti-war nations working together could only be a force for stability in the world— much needed.
And there is a lot research also on BRICS worth reading, for example by professor Glen Diesen
https://news.az/news/-why-brics-and-sco-are-changing-the-rules-of-global-politics?fbclid=iwzxh0bgnhzw0cmteaar1mevkyljozq2ert9ce64u7noecxnknn4eanw4coqpqy1dqftwictoel8a_aem_wz1jdei0g_dcnxuctpbgtw
Really helpful comment, but this reminds me of what is left out here about BRICS.
BRICS as an organization of sovereign countries is meant to affirm the right of development of every country. China has proposed this right of development as a tenet of the United Nations, but the United States has prevented the right of development from being considered and accepted. That is the point of sanctions, to prevent a nation’s development.
British sanctions against Zimbabwe are carefully designed to undermine Zimbabwe’s development. The entire Biden Presidency has been an effort to undermine and prevent Chinese development. A purpose of BRICS members is to assure the right of development of member countries.
This is why China will not entertain the demands of German’s Annaleena Baerbock to accept sanctions.
BRICS is meant expressly to provide for the development of each member.
*Sigh*
Please tell me what good rights are without enforcement or at least funding. For instance, one of FDR’s Four Freedom was freedom from “want,” as in poverty and hunger. How is that coming?
Consider this section from a 2012 post:
Which kind of unified action are you missing? BRICS already has its own international development bank NDB to finance national projects.
BRICS is also not the only organisation working for multipolarism. Another important player is the Shanghai Coperation organisation SCO. And there are many others.
Multipolarism is polycentric and it aims to change the globalisation process not abolish it.
This change aims to learn from previous mistakes. The economy and global trade is more important than freeing up global capital. The aim is to strengthen the voice of small developing countries and support their sovereignty.
They are talking about a new movement of non-aligned countries, i.e. neo-NAMs, which supports a practical but principled neutral policy. That’s why the economy is important. Globalization is not abandoned, but it is given a more human face. The environment/climate, epidemic diseases and food safety issues also remain on the agenda, but they must not undermine the lives of ordinary people.
HK’s points are very well taken and I agree with the gist. So I’m merely making a technical observation when I say that insofar as BRICS are able to cooperate and coordinate loosely in the pursuit of their peaceful national interests, they have already accomplished their ideal end state. They seek only to grow this attractively peaceful cooperation and interaction space.
The problem is that they are facing a Collective West that is pursuing a focussed program of continued global dictatorship that necessarily precludes the interaction space that BRICS seeks to occupy and grow.