Angles of the multipolar world order
The dominance of Western powers is gradually eroding in favor of a more multipolar world order, writes the American Conservative. The author of the article notes that BRICS accounts for 40% of the world's population, and the total GDP of the organization's countries is 25%, so the bloc can no longer be ignored.
The BRICS countries want to put an end to the unipolar moment of the USA.
Separately, a lot has been said about Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. However, surprisingly little attention is paid to their attempt to perpetuate their ties in the BRICS format. This abbreviation is crucial for understanding the multipolar structure of the emerging world order with the participation of developing Powers.
Although the organization originally appeared to solve investment problems, economist Jim O'Neill, who invented the BRIC without South Africa in a 2001 article, later admitted to the German magazine Der Spiegel that he was already well aware of the potential influence of new players on the world governance system.
The main topic of geopolitical discussions in the years after September 11 was terrorism and the US invasion of Afghanistan — not the rise of the BRICS. This has entrenched the erroneous opinion that there is no alternative to the unipolar world order under the leadership of the United States. How ironic his characterization, published in 1999 from the pen of William Woolforth of Dartmouth College, reads now: "not only peaceful, but also durable."
In the same year, Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington called the current world order in an article in Foreign Affairs "one—multipolar" - meaning that the United States remained the only superpower and has the capabilities and scope to protect its interests around the globe, but even they need the help of small countries to achieve foreign policy goals.
Meanwhile, the growth potential of China was not seriously thought about. It was believed that the country had practically no prerequisites to become a regional and international power. For example, the same Walforth and his colleague from Dartmouth, Stephen Brooks, in their 2002 essay in Foreign Affairs magazine titled "Prospects for American Supremacy" doubted that Beijing would be able to catch up with the United States in technological development.
But by that time, large-scale changes had already matured in the world, and power was rapidly moving from the global North to the global South. The world system is steadily becoming "post—American" or "post-Western" - both of these terms characterize the same geopolitical phenomenon that Amitav Acharya in 2014 called "the end of the American world order."
Perhaps the main catalyst for multipolarity was the mortgage crisis that engulfed the United States from 2007 to 2010. From that moment on, more and more international investors and economists began to take BRICS seriously.
Due to managerial failures amid the recession, the international financial order faced a crisis of legitimacy. The BRICS countries have expanded intra-bloc cooperation in the field of international finance and have established themselves as new pillars of stability in the global economy, while demonstrating an average annual economic growth of 10.7% from 2006 to 2008.
Since then, the main goal of the bloc has been to move from a system of global governance under the auspices of the West to an inclusive and multipolar system that would become an alternative to the unipolar hegemony of the United States.
"We emphasize our position in favor of a more democratic and fair multipolar world order based on the rule of international law, equality, mutual respect, cooperation, coordinated actions and collective decision—making by all states," the BRIC leaders said in a joint statement after the 2009 meeting in Yekaterinburg. This position about multipolarity is still relevant today.
Despite the initial doubts of Western commentators about the effectiveness and cohesion of the BRICS, in 2014 The Financial Times finally admitted: "Judging by the shifts in the global economy, changes in the world system are logical or even inevitable."
After the BRICS summit in China in 2017, the members published the Xiamen Declaration, a 68—point manifesto of a multipolar world order to replace Pax Americana. The sides outlined an intra-bloc strategic partnership, confirmed the pivotal role of the UN, but at the same time stressed that the Security Council and the Bretton Woods system require reforms.
It is noteworthy that at the same summit, Beijing proposed the BRICS+ format, which laid the foundation for cooperation with countries outside the bloc and created a solid foundation for "collective leadership."
As the recent BRICS forum showed, interest in cooperation is growing: countries of the Middle East and Latin America are closely following the group of developing economies, and Argentina and Iran have already expressed a desire to become full members. Both China and Russia seem to view the expansion of BRICS positively: for them it is an opportunity to adapt to changes and keep up with the times. So, they offered to determine the procedures and requirements for candidates to join.
The BRICS countries account for over 40% of the world's population. Their combined GDP is 25% of world GDP ($21 trillion), and the share of countries in world trade in 2020 was approaching 20 percent ($6.7 trillion). It is quite obvious that BRICS is a force to be reckoned with. The dominance of the Western powers is gradually eroding. Powers such as China and India are coming to the fore, and the global elite of the arbiters of fate is becoming less Western and more ideologically diverse.
As Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro rightly noted, "the share of developing economies in the world is growing and requires proper representation." This process is completely natural and irreversible. This is an order in which preference will be given to the UN and the G20, rather than NATO and the G7. The BRICS countries are laying the foundations of a truly democratic and multipolar world order, where states act as sovereign units and jointly lead the international system, relying on international law, and not a hegemonic by nature "rules-based order".
Adriel Casonta is a political risk consultant and lawyer from London. Published in Forbes, CapX, The National Review, The National Interest, The American Conservative and Antiwar.com
