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Thought impossible only a few years ago, BRICS has now passed the US led G7 as the biggest gross domestic product bloc in the world.

antiwar.com

by Ted Snider

While the US labors to maintain the unipolar world it leads, a multipolar world is springing up all around it. Africa and Brazil cry for it. China and India support it. Germany has whispered it, and France has called for it. Iran and Saudi Arabia are joining the multipolar Shanghai Cooperation Organization. But the most stunning sign of the reality of the new multipolar world may be the explosive growth of BRICS.

BRICS is an international organization whose primary purpose is to balance US hegemony in a new multipolar world. Its roots go back to 1996 and the emergence of the core group of Russia, India and China (RIC). In 2009, along with Brazil, BRIC held its first summit. In 2010, South Africa joined, and BRICS was formed, making it, perhaps, the only major international body in which representatives of Africa and Latin America have an equal voice.

The group is neither an alliance nor a bloc, and it is not against the United States. But it does seek to end the American led unipolar world and replace it with a world with many poles and many nations with equal voices. With members from almost every continent, the BRICS nations represent 3.2 billion people, or almost 41% of the planet’s population.

And that counterbalance is growing. At the recent BRICS Foreign Ministers’ Meeting, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Egypt, Nigeria, Senegal and Thailand were all welcomed as guests. Turkey, a NATO member, is seeking membership. At their annual summit in South Africa in June, the five BRICS members will discuss enlargement and the nineteen countries that have expressed interest in joining. Thirteen countries have formally requested membership in the multipolar organization, and six have made informal requests. Iran and Saudi Arabia have formally requested membership. Argentina, the United Arab Emirates, Algeria, Egypt, Bahrain and Indonesia are all known to have declared their interest. That list represents another 600 million people and would push BRICS’ share of the global population well past 41%. The list also reportedly includes Mexico and at least three other African nations. Russia has previously said that Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Sudan and Venezuela are also on the list.

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