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I think it's a bit of both. There is a real organization, with real interests, that are at this point mostly being held together by the desire to no longer be d

by jerf 4y ago

I think it's a bit of both. There is a real organization, with real interests, that are at this point mostly being held together by the desire to no longer be dominated by the US-centric dollar-based system. If the US fades, this unifying principle will disappear over time, and the unity of this organization would as well. Already some of what it has accomplished, to some great fanfare in certain places, strikes me as being nothing more, and nothing less, than that. It isn't as unified as some would like to present, and it isn't something that the existing world powers should just ignore as irrelevant. It's complicated. It's a complicated time in world history, as transitions are.

yamtaddle 4y ago
I'd mostly agree with this analysis. I don't see them holding together absent the unipolar NATO-dominated world giving them common ground, as they're mainly composed of the top representative states of all three major non-NATO blocs from the Cold War (Soviet, Maoist, and "3rd world" movement) and there's a reason those three groups weren't all pals back then.
unity1001 4y ago
> If the US fades, this unifying principle will disappear over time Working, functional partnership do not dissolve easily. The Eu, despite all its problems is a good example. Even the US-controlled system was one - it had a lot of disadvantages, but it worked to some degree, and it kept going on. BRICS and the analogues that are converging with it are multilateral, egalitarian partnerships that worked well for all their participants, totally independent of the US. Some favored US allies kept increasing their BRICS participation even while they got a lot of benefits from the US. So its unlikely that they would just leave. To simplify, BRICS and its analogues seem to be what the WTO would be without the 'special rules based order' that the US was subjecting everyone to, and the blackmailing influence of the Anglosaxon dominated financial system. (as can be seen from what happened recently with 'sanctions' and the resulting confiscations of money). That was the last straw actually, all the countries that are rushing to BRICS as of this moment, started those initiatives immediately after 'asset seizures', or, rather, theft, that was effected on their enemies by the US, the UK and the supposedly neutral Switzerland. The 'neutrality' was discovered to be a farce and the 'rules based order' discovered to be able to change its rules whenever, however it suit its rule-makers. The result is everyone applying to BRICS membership or observer status...
- jerf 4y ago
  > > If the US fades, this unifying principle will disappear over time. > Working, functional partnership do not dissolve easily. I would suggest you may want to consider the fairly vast gulf between what I said and what you seem to think I said. As all organizations eventually converge into their primary purpose becoming their own perpetuation, I'm sure the BRICS will be around far longer than I will. The UN, a much larger organization already far past its prime and effectively bereft of purpose, lurches on at a scale essentially incomprehensible to the human mind, yet it does not die, because such things rarely do, and effectively never on a sensible time scale. Without an enemy unifying it, BRICS will eventually just be the UN 2.0. But it will take time, decades probably, to get there. The really entertaining question to ponder is, when will the US, or at least something that is composed of some chunk of the 50 states (the territories may well do so much sooner), apply to join the BRICS?

by jerf 4y ago

yamtaddle 4y ago

I'd mostly agree with this analysis. I don't see them holding together absent the unipolar NATO-dominated world giving them common ground, as they're mainly composed of the top representative states of all three major non-NATO blocs from the Cold War (Soviet, Maoist, and "3rd world" movement) and there's a reason those three groups weren't all pals back then.

unity1001 4y ago

> If the US fades, this unifying principle will disappear over time Working, functional partnership do not dissolve easily. The Eu, despite all its problems is a good example. Even the US-controlled system was one - it had a lot of disadvantages, but it worked to some degree, and it kept going on. BRICS and the analogues that are converging with it are multilateral, egalitarian partnerships that worked well for all their participants, totally independent of the US. Some favored US allies kept increasing their BRICS participation even while they got a lot of benefits from the US. So its unlikely that they would just leave. To simplify, BRICS and its analogues seem to be what the WTO would be without the 'special rules based order' that the US was subjecting everyone to, and the blackmailing influence of the Anglosaxon dominated financial system. (as can be seen from what happened recently with 'sanctions' and the resulting confiscations of money). That was the last straw actually, all the countries that are rushing to BRICS as of this moment, started those initiatives immediately after 'asset seizures', or, rather, theft, that was effected on their enemies by the US, the UK and the supposedly neutral Switzerland. The 'neutrality' was discovered to be a farce and the 'rules based order' discovered to be able to change its rules whenever, however it suit its rule-makers. The result is everyone applying to BRICS membership or observer status...

jerf 4y ago
> > If the US fades, this unifying principle will disappear over time. > Working, functional partnership do not dissolve easily. I would suggest you may want to consider the fairly vast gulf between what I said and what you seem to think I said. As all organizations eventually converge into their primary purpose becoming their own perpetuation, I'm sure the BRICS will be around far longer than I will. The UN, a much larger organization already far past its prime and effectively bereft of purpose, lurches on at a scale essentially incomprehensible to the human mind, yet it does not die, because such things rarely do, and effectively never on a sensible time scale. Without an enemy unifying it, BRICS will eventually just be the UN 2.0. But it will take time, decades probably, to get there. The really entertaining question to ponder is, when will the US, or at least something that is composed of some chunk of the 50 states (the territories may well do so much sooner), apply to join the BRICS?