[ The rise of the Brics is not enough to displace the US or avert
a third world war. ]
[[link removed]]

BRICS EXPANSION IS POSITIVE – BUT NOT A COHERENT CHALLENGE TO US
POWER  
[[link removed]]


 

Editorial

Morning Star
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ The rise of the Brics is not enough to displace the US or avert a
third world war. _

From left, Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, China's
President Xi Jinping, South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa,
India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russia's Foreign Minister
Sergei Lavrov ,

 

AS SIGNIFICANT as the fact of Brics expansion are which countries are
now set to join: Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates,
Ethiopia and Argentina.

The six applicants will mean the Brics (which already account for a
larger share of world GDP than the G7 group of developed capitalist
countries) rise to representing 37 per cent of the global economy and
46 per cent of the human race.

They are also heavily concentrated in the Middle East, a region
traditionally dominated by US imperialism. There is a definite move
from Middle Eastern powers away from Washington’s orbit and the
implications for continued US hegemony could be great.

Could be. Socialists should be alert both to the positive aspects of
Brics expansion and to the many contradictions within the group, some
already being exploited by Western imperialist powers.

Brics expansion indicates the rise of the global South. Brics
countries share an — entirely accurate — perception that most
global institutions, especially financial institutions such as the IMF
and World Bank, are instruments used by the United States and the old
imperialist powers to maintain economic dominance through control of
other countries’ resources.

Changing economic interests provide opportunities to resolve
longstanding feuds. China’s brokering of a rapprochement between
Iran and Saudi Arabia may — we do not know — have been facilitated
by promised Brics membership for both.

Its immediate consequence was progress towards a peace in Yemen
between the Saudi-led coalition and the Iran-backed Houthi movement.
An end to Saudi-Iranian rivalry weakens the US in the Middle East and
it is no surprise that Western powers have not welcomed a prospective
end to the Yemen war.

Britain — so dedicated to Saudi victory it maintained arms sales
even when the US paused them over the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, and
which has provided extensive logistical support for an air force
bombing hospitals, schools and residential areas — is reportedly
deploying extra troops to oil-rich eastern Yemen, while Mohammad
al-Atifi, defence minister in the Houthis’ Government of National
Salvation, said this month
[[link removed]] that
the US and Britain were “leaving no stone unturned to obstruct”
any peace deal.

Iran and Saudi Arabia joining the Brics makes the success of these
spoiler schemes less likely. But not impossible. Existing Brics
members are regularly at loggerheads. India — a core member in the
seemingly anti-US-hegemony Brics — is simultaneously a member of the
Quad, a US-led anti-China military bloc.

Brics expansion shows the decline of US power. Its efforts to isolate
Russia following the invasion of Ukraine have only worked on its
closest allies: most of the world isn’t listening.

But it does not indicate any coherent foreign policy on the part of
the Brics themselves, unlike the ideologically aligned G7. And the
US’s military and economic dominance over its European and East
Asian allies has if anything increased since the Ukraine war started,
with Nato expanding and Japan both rearming and in US-brokered
engagement with South Korea.

The Brics’ ideological diversity is a strength and a weakness.

It allows any country looking to challenge a “rules-based
international order” in which the US makes and breaks the rules to
see advantages in membership. This shared interest can unite old
enemies and bring together progressive governments with some of the
world’s most reactionary ones.

But it does not systematically oppose imperialism, as India’s
military alliance with the US in the Indo-Pacific (or that of Brazil
in Latin America under former president Jair Bolsonaro) shows, and as
we see in Yemen, imperialism will “leave no stone unturned” to
divide and rule.

The rise of the Brics is not enough to displace the US or avert a
third world war. Anti-imperialists in remaining US allies like Britain
must do what we can to halt the drive towards militarisation and end
our governments’ subordination to Washington.

* BRICS
[[link removed]]
* anti-imperialism
[[link removed]]
* Militarism
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]

Manage subscription
[[link removed]]

Visit xxxxxx.org
[[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 




[link removed]

To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]