NATO at the Crossroads: Strategic Pathways for Collective Security in the Ukraine–Russia War

Abstract

One of the most dramatic pieces of evidence of the shifting order in international governance structures is the emergence of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). BRICS is an economic label coined by a Western financial bank and which has gained a political and institutional life throughout the years. Its formation of the New Development Bank (NDB), its bold growth by its new members and its joint demands to reform the United Nations and international financial institutions all indicate a calculated threat to the hegemony of the post-1945 institutions. However, the history of BRICS is not a history of slow growth per se. There are also significant asymmetries within the group: the economic insulation of China, the isolation that Russia has self-inflicted and a long-standing hostility between India and China are constraining the strategic convergence. Though BRICS has carved a niche as an advocate of the Global South, many have criticized it as little more than mere rhetoric and little material results.

Simultaneously, BRICS has also acquired an additional burden in the form of the geopolitical situation. To address these pressures, the conflict in Ukraine, increased rivalry and hostility between the United States and China and the wish to challenge Western-centric financial power have all contributed to the increase of the attractiveness of other platforms. Instead of hegemony, BRICS will enshrine a new kind of energy management, reorganisation of trade, and innovative financial technologies, specifically the containment of the US dollar as the hegemonic currency (as evidenced by recent additions of Saudi Arabia, Iran and Egypt to the BRICS).

But the future of BRICS lies in limbo: either, it can succeed in institutionalising itself as a more effective and efficient bloc that can then offer real alternatives to G7 and the institutions of Bretton Woods system; or fall prey to the need to be content with being an escape valve to avoid isolationism. One can also envision the scenario where self-division compels it to assume a mostly nominal role. More probable, however, is that it will be hybrid: BRICS will serve as a venue to challenge Western hegemony, elevate the political presence of emerging economies and experiment with new forms of collaboration, but will fail to build something that can be described as a bloc. BRICS has attracted attention not so much due to its immediate contribution to the order of the world, but, indeed, because it is one of the most prominent forerunners of the demand of a change at the global level in the structure of both power and representation. This is an indicator of a world that has become weary of the prospect of mono-polarity, yet remains incapable of settling on what multi-polarity ought to appear like in reality.