Russia and BRICS: An Introduction

On July 14-16, the heads of state of the five BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) will gather in Fortaleza and Brasilia for their sixth annual summit. It is, as the newly launched website proudly notes, the beginning of “the second cycle of BRICS.” What the authors intend is that, since each BRICS member state has already hosted one summit, the Fortaleza summit marks the beginning of the second rotation. There is, however, a possible alternative interpretation: this is the first BRICS summit since the biggest rift between Russia and the historical West since before the end of the Cold War. For Russia, the summit is an opportunity to demonstrate, amidst much pomp and circumstance, that even as Western Europe mulls harsher sanctions, Russia is still possessed of powerful international partners.

 

While the situation in Ukraine may have unexpectedly forced this issue, though, Russia’s leaders have been gradually placing more emphasis on the role of BRICS within Russian foreign policy for years, even before the 2008 global financial crisis brought the group into the international spotlight. In this blog, I’ll explore that evolution, looking at the evolution of the idea of BRICS within broader Russian foreign policy and economic trends. The driving question is therefore not understanding if and where the BRICS countries have acted successfully as a bloc within international politics (although that is important too), but rather understanding what Russia’s goals for the group have been, whether those goals have changed, and why. I’ll examine, among other things, how those goals have meshed with other Russian economic and foreign policy objectives and whether other members have conflicting objectives that have induced Russia to adjust its policies.

 

First, though, some brief background and history. In 2001, Jim O’Neill, then head of Global Economics Research at the investment bank Goldman Sachs, published a short paper entitled “Building Better Global Economic BRICs.” The paper’s goal was to identify the future leaders of the global economy, primarily as a tool for guiding investment; it focused on Brazil, Russia, India, and China. This paper was followed in 2003 by “Dreaming with BRICs: the path to 2050,” penned by O’Neill’s colleagues Dominic Wilson and Roopa Purushothaman. Although these authors were thinking through what would amount to monumental shifts in global economic power, none envisioned that the countries would then choose to unite under the BRIC banner and attempt to turn their growing economic might into political influence on the world stage.

 

Unite they did, though, at least nominally. The first informal meeting between BRIC ministers of foreign affairs took place on the sidelines of the 2006 United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). Since then, cooperation has expanded to include yearly summits at the highest levels, and regular meetings of central bankers, agricultural ministers, and a wide range of other activities. In 2011, South Africa joined the group, turning BRIC to BRICS and marking the official delineation between O’Neill’s economic BRICs and the political BRICS group. (Wikipedia even has different entries for the two.)

 

Russia played a central role in pushing the original BRIC countries to come together as a political group. The next post will delve more deeply into that process and consider Russia’s likely original intentions when it began pushing for BRICS unity. I will also include a post-game discussion of the sixth BRICS summit.