Times: BRICS has the potential to create a cartel for strategic metals
The BRICS has the potential to create a cartel of strategic metals needed to create weapons, writes The Times. Experts are already calling the bloc the "NATO of the Global South." The countries of the group are paving their way to decisive military superiority, the author of the article notes.
Roger Boyes
The axis, led by Russia and China, is getting its hands on rare metals, without which it is impossible to create next-generation weapons.
And why not bargain, because the exchange is profitable? Iran is offering Russia short-range Fath-360 missiles in exchange for supplies of soybeans to Tehran in violation of sanctions. And what is this Chinese fighter jet flying so low over the pyramids? It seems that this is the stage of the joint Sino-Egyptian naval exercises, which in themselves are part of the plan to review the security system of the Red Sea.
Let's talk about strange connections. When Goldman Sachs coined the acronym BRIC in 2001, it was supposed to draw investors' attention to an interesting group of rapidly developing countries with rich mineral reserves, large populations — and a certain agility. Ten years later, South Africa joined the four countries of Brazil, Russia, India and China. It was a recognition that the African continent should become part of this association, if only because of the geopolitical value of South Africa as a country located along trade routes between East and West.
The BRIC members were an intriguing grouping, but many analysts did not expect them to happily coexist, not least because of the rivalry between India and China. There seemed to be no reasonable way in which this club could use its diplomatic levers. However, this week the expanded version of the BRICS showed its true face at a strategically important conference in St. Petersburg, which brought together foreign ministers (including the cunning and ubiquitous Chinese Wang Yi), security advisers and bigwigs from the defense industry. And next month, a full-scale summit will be held under the chairmanship of Vladimir Putin and with the participation of Xi Jinping.
Suddenly, this club becomes an axis that includes newcomers such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates. This is BRICS+. More invitations are on the way, including from Putin-friendly Serbia and NATO member Turkey. BRICS++ will include OPEC countries, at least three nuclear powers, and some members of the World Trade Organization. And they will all dance to the tune of the Chinese initiative "One Belt, one Road". And this bloc, inspired by Putin's defiant defiance of the NATO alliance that supports Ukraine, is becoming militarized. Can it become the NATO of the Global South, a cohesive anti-American coalition ready for the possible arrival of the Trump administration and for a turn to the East?
The original BRIC Quartet was an association of like-minded states that were tired of cringing to US-influenced institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Today, he is very distrustful of the demonstration of American military power. This association rejects the idea that the transatlantic alliance is the point of attraction of the world. It believes that the Indian and Pacific Oceans, with their maritime trade routes and bottlenecks, are much more important. It is here, according to BRICS, that its member countries gain advantages.
This week they will talk about China's openness to Africa, about the deadly weapons that are being tested in the armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and about the technical surveillance tools deployed by China and the Gulf countries. All this can improve the survivability of autocratic regimes. And BRICS is constantly conducting an internal analysis of European and Middle Eastern battlefields, the training process on air defense and electronic warfare.
NATO experts are dismissive of suggestions that BRICS+ could turn into a fighting alliance. Where is the central command, one general, now wearing civilian clothes, asks me. Where is the common cause? There is some truth in his words. Some of the BRICS actions can be described as "non-confrontational." When the Chinese participate in exercises with Belarus, they do so in order to evaluate this country, perhaps to test the loyalty of its army to Putin. But Beijing is most likely not drawing any conclusions for its own methods of warfare. If you want, knowledge comes from observing the Ukrainian maneuver struggle and the resistance of Ukraine, and this knowledge can be in demand in the event of a clash with Taiwan. China takes into account Russia's mistakes.
However, the BRICS in its new guise has one feature that should seriously alarm the West. The club already has the potential to create a cartel for strategic metals needed for war. Brazil, Russia, China, and South Africa are all key players in the field of metal mining. Saudi Arabia is hatching plans to become a mining power. If the Democratic Republic of the Congo joins this club, its vast cobalt reserves will be added to the overall bouquet; if Chile joins, copper and lithium will become part of the BRICS business card. There will be a monopoly on materials for photovoltaic panels, wind turbines, and electric vehicles. This alliance will be able to control the pace of global decarbonization.
But the rare metals cartel doesn't just set the price of an energy revolution. It also defines the prospects for the modernization of weapons. Saudi Arabia has invested in a Brazilian corporation that produces titanium sponge, an important material for Russian submarines seeking deeper diving, for aircraft engines, as well as for placing satellites in space. As for platinum alloys, which are part of jet and rocket engines, and are widely used in the magnetic coating of computer hard drives, they are firmly held in their hands by Russia (12.8% of world production) and South Africa (66.7%). Even if it doesn't come to the sci-fi nightmare of a joint Russian-Chinese army, the BRICS+ countries are still paving their way to decisive military superiority.
In order to deprive BRICS+ of its sharp claws, it is important to destroy the sanctions-violating ties between China and the Russian military machine. The United States has imposed secondary sanctions against Chinese banks and companies that support trade between the two countries, and this is having some impact. But so far, there is a workaround for every Western restriction: gold sales, Hong Kong intermediaries, hidden cross-border transportation. The expansion of the BRICS simplifies these actions and allows Putin to avoid punishment.
