BRICS does not yet herald the end of American primacy or the birth of a new world order. But it reflects a world seeking more centers of power—and a greater voice for nations long kept at its margins.
When BRICS leaders gather in New Delhi, the photographs will show presidents and prime ministers attending another international summit. Behind those photographs, however, stands a question considerably larger than BRICS itself:
Is the geopolitical order beginning to change?
The answer may already be before us.
The unipolar moment after the Cold War has receded. China has risen. India is rising. The Global South demands a larger voice. Russia has turned increasingly toward non-Western partners. Middle powers are asserting strategic autonomy. Even America’s friends increasingly seek room to pursue relationships according to their own interests.
BRICS did not create those forces. BRICS is the political expression of them.
What began with Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa has expanded considerably. Its enlarged membership gives BRICS greater demographic, economic and diplomatic weight—and considerably greater internal complexity.
Its significance therefore lies not merely in what BRICS is today, but in what its growth tells us about the changing world.
WHY BRICS MATTERS
For decades, the international system has been shaped disproportionately by the United States and its Western allies.
American military power remains formidable. The dollar occupies a privileged position in international finance. Western nations exercise enormous influence through global financial institutions, markets and alliances.
That order did not arise without reason. American leadership helped construct institutions that contributed to decades of international trade, development and relative stability.
But the world of today is not the world of 1945—or 1991.
Countries representing billions of people and increasingly important economies are asking why international institutions should continue reflecting yesterday’s distribution of power.
That question is not necessarily anti-American. It is a demand for representation. And Washington is understandably watching.
After the Soviet Union collapsed, the United States enjoyed a degree of global predominance unmatched by any other country. BRICS does not overturn that order, but it represents something Washington cannot comfortably ignore: major nations seeking greater freedom to trade, finance and conduct diplomacy without excessive dependence upon institutions in which America and its allies have traditionally exercised exceptional influence.
The dollar illustrates the point.
It is not about to disappear as the world’s principal reserve currency. India itself has resisted presenting BRICS cooperation as a campaign to dethrone it. Yet member countries continue exploring greater use of national currencies and alternative payment arrangements.
The dollar may not be facing a rebellion. It is facing a search for alternatives.
The wiser American response, therefore, may not be to ask: How can BRICS be contained? It should ask: Why are so many consequential countries attracted to alternatives?
If part of the answer involves inadequate representation, sanctions, financial vulnerability, unilateralism or perceived double standards, those concerns deserve examination rather than dismissal.
America should not fear a world in which others become stronger. It should be concerned if others conclude that American leadership no longer serves them.
BRICS, however, deserves the same scrutiny.
Replacing American predominance with Chinese predominance would not democratize international affairs.
It would merely change the address of power.
China is economically the strongest BRICS member. India has its own aspirations and a complicated relationship with Beijing involving cooperation, competition and strategic mistrust.
That makes India’s position particularly important.
New Delhi need not choose between Washington and Beijing, or between West and anti-West. It can argue instead for strategic autonomy—a world in which nations cooperate where their interests converge without surrendering independence where they differ.
BRICS itself demonstrates why such independence matters.
Its expansion is simultaneously its strength and its weakness. Members bring different political systems, alliances, rivalries and strategic objectives. India and China remain competitors. Russia’s confrontation with the West shapes its priorities differently from India’s. Iran and the United Arab Emirates have serious differences. Several members have no desire to sacrifice productive relationships with America and Europe merely to join an anti-Western camp.
Thus, BRICS has demographic weight. It has economic weight. It increasingly has diplomatic weight. What it does not possess yet is strategic coherence. That is the challenge before it.
WHAT CAN BRICS DELIVER?
Summit declarations are easy. Building durable institutions is harder.
- Can BRICS finance meaningful development?
- Can it increase trade without creating new dependencies?
- Can it develop alternative financial mechanisms without allowing its largest economy to dominate them?
- Can it defend national sovereignty consistently—even when the alleged violator happens to be a friend?
- Can nations with serious disagreements cooperate without pretending those differences do not exist? Above all, Can BRICS offer the world something better—or merely something different? That is the question by which history should judge it.
The world does not need another exclusive club of powerful nations claiming to speak for everybody else. It needs institutions in which emerging countries receive greater representation, smaller nations retain their sovereignty, development is not conditioned upon political obedience, and international rules apply to the powerful as well as the weak.
INDIA’S OPPORTUNITY
India may be uniquely positioned to articulate that vision.
It sits with Russia and China in BRICS while maintaining important partnerships with the United States, Europe, Japan and other democracies. It speaks naturally to the Global South while increasingly possessing the economic and political weight of a major power. What appears contradictory may actually be India’s advantage. India can tell Washington that yesterday’s distribution of global power cannot remain permanent. It can tell Beijing that tomorrow’s world cannot simply substitute one dominant power for another. And it can tell BRICS that credibility will come not from the number of leaders standing for the photograph, but from what their cooperation delivers for the nations and people they represent.
That could be India’s distinctive contribution: not leading an anti-Western coalition, but helping build a more representative international system.
The Delhi summit will not create a new world order over a weekend. Nor will American power suddenly disappear. But something quieter and potentially more consequential is occurring. The world is acquiring alternatives. BRICS is one expression of that transformation.
The geopolitical order is already changing. The question is whether BRICS can help shape what comes next.
Do you seek a fairer world order, or merely a larger share of power for yourselves?
That is the distinction upon which the promise of multipolarity rests.
A multipolar world should mean the democratization of global power—not merely its redistribution among the powerful.
If BRICS contributes to that transformation, its rise may someday be remembered as an important chapter in the remaking of the international order. If it merely produces another contest for supremacy, the flags will change.
The struggle for dominance will not.
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