In 2001, a Goldman Sachs economist named Jim O'Neill thought of the term "BRIC" to describe a bloc of countries, which he believed would grow from "emerging economies" to the dominant force in global trade (Rached 91).
At the time, O'Neill predicted that the four countries encompassed in the acronym—Brazil, Russia, India, and China—would eventually outpace and eclipse what were then known as the G8 countries: the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Russia, and Japan.
Note one detail: when Jim O'Neill coined this term, Russia straddled the two classifications, as Russia tends to do.
Russia has been readying itself to be severed from the West since before the twenty-first century began.
While the West paid minimal attention, Russia invested time and money to build a global support system in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, especially a development bank, founded in 2015, from which only 18% of approved loans went to Russia but 82% went to Africa, Africa, and South America.
The loans were earmarked for essential services: transport (29%), water/sanitation (22%), urban and social needs (15%), energy (26%), and agriculture (8%).
With investments in key regional hubs — Brazil, South Africa, China, and India — Russians deliberately placed the hinges of three large continents in the hands of leaders who had obligations to Moscow and reasons to view Putin favorably. This helps to explain why so many countries rejected the sanctions the United States called for.
As Giovanni Barbieri noted, as early as 2015, Russia was already working with China and India, as well as other nations, on "the internationalization of [China's] domestic currency." The plan to carve out a global economy free from the dominance of the dollar was in the works long before the most recent sanctions over Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
There's ample evidence that Russia isn't paying as much attention to us as we think it is.
Many Americans may be mistaken about who constitutes Russia's main audience. During the overheated English-language coverage of Ukraine, stern moral pronouncements by bungling Biden and other Western leaders imply that the West thinks Russia is listening to us and values the hope of staying in our good graces.
A review of the international relations scholarship provides us with an intriguing arc from 2001 to now. Today, ironically, BRIC and G8 no longer exist. In their place are BRICS and G7. In 2009, the original BRIC foursome decided to take ownership of the name, and they formed an interregional partnership. The following year, they inducted a fifth member, South Africa.
Four years after BRIC became BRICS, the G8 became the G7. Why did the G8 lose one member? The year was 2014, and Russia was sanctioned, then kicked out of the power club because of its invasion of Crimea. Therefore, eight years ago, a line was drawn between two economic realms: one clearly led by the United States, rich, heavily industrialized, and united by the Bretton Woods financial system, the other led largely by China, but also by India and Russia in their own way, more modest in consumption, on their way to development but not quite there yet, and — quite significantly — united in little beyond their common feeling that they needed to create an alternative system to Bretton Woods.
BRICS has been projected to buoy four more emerging economies known as MINT: Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Turkey, the grouping Razia Khan dubs "the next generation of developing economies that will achieve great importance".
I would recommend taking the time to look through the articles listed at the end of this essay. It may scare you, but Russia has been thorough and thoughtful about carving out an alternative universe where the dollar is not supreme, the United States can't tell people what to do, and countries can engage in international relations without the tiresome burden of post-Renaissance European colonialism.
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/04/why_brics_and_mint_might_save_russia_and_sink_the_us.html
Barbieri, Giovanni. "Beyond Ideology: A Reassessment of Regionalism and Globalism in IR Theory, Using China as a Case Study." In Revisiting Regionalism and the Contemporary World Order: Perspectives from the BRICS and Beyond, edited by Élise Féron, Jyrki Käkönen, and Gabriel Rached, 1st ed., 225–52. Verlag Barbara Budrich, 2019.
https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvr00xjn.15.
Bridle, Richard, and Anna Geddes. "CASE STUDY: SOUTH AFRICA: Beyond Fossil Fuels: Fiscal Transition in BRICS." International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), 2019.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep22016.
Garg, Vibhuti, and Anna Geddes. "CASE STUDY: INDIA: Beyond Fossil Fuels: Fiscal Transition in BRICS." International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), 2019.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep22014.
Gerasimchuk, Ivetta, and Yuliia Oharenko. "CASE STUDY: RUSSIA: Beyond Fossil Fuels: Fiscal Transition in BRICS." International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), 2019.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep22015.
Gerasimchuk, Ivetta, Kjell Kühne, Joachim Roth, Anna Geddes, Yuliia Oharenko, Richard Bridle, and Vibhuti Garg. "Clean Energy Transition Versus Fossil Fuel Path Dependence." Beyond Fossil Fuels: Fiscal Transition in BRICS. International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), 2019.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep21911.5.
Khan, Razia. "An Extra Strong MINT." The World Today 70, no. 1 (2014): 12–18.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/24640739.
Kühne, Kjell, and Joachim Roth. "Beyond Fossil Fuels: Fiscal Transition in BRICS." International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), 2019.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep22013.
McDonald, Terry, and Benjamin Klasche. "Foot in the Door: China's Investments in the Arctic Region." In Revisiting Regionalism and the Contemporary World Order: Perspectives from the BRICS and Beyond, edited by Élise Féron, Käkönen, and Gabriel Rached, 1st ed., 201–22. Verlag Barbara Budrich, 2019.
https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvr00xjn.14.
Mikhaylenko, E. B., and I. M. Adami. "Coping with the Changing World Order: The Case of Russia." In Revisiting Regionalism and the Contemporary World Order: Perspectives from the BRICS and Beyond, edited by Élise Féron, Jyrki Käkönen, and Gabriel Rached, 1st ed., 157–78. Verlag Barbara Budrich, 2019.
https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvr00xjn.12.
Muresan, Arina, and Philani Mthembu, eds. "Outcomes from the 11th BRICS Summit 2019." Brazil's 2019 Chairship of the BRICS: Charting a Course for 2020. Institute for Global Dialogue, 2020.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep25335.5.
Muresan, Arina. "Understanding the Role of the BRICS Partnership: Strategic Ways Forward." South Africa in the World 2020: Pragmatism versus Ideology. Institute for Global Dialogue, 2020.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep30587.9.
Naidu, Sanusha, Chisola Chembe, Jesuloba Ilesanmi, Remofiloe Lobakeng, and Simphiwe Mongwe. "BRICS under Pressure." Edited by Arina Muresan and Philani Mthembu. South Africa in the World Navigating a Changing Global Order. Institute for Global Dialogue, 2020.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep25336.11.
Naik, Shraddha. "The Emergence of BRICS: An Extension of Interregionalism to the Global South." In Revisiting Regionalism and the Contemporary World Order: Perspectives from the BRICS and Beyond, edited by Élise Féron, Jyrki Käkönen, and Gabriel Rached, 1st ed., 61–82. Verlag Barbara Budrich, 2019.
https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvr00xjn.8.
Naude, Bianca. "Regionalism as Resistance?: South Africa's Utopia of Souths." In Revisiting Regionalism and the Contemporary World Order: Perspectives from the BRICS and Beyond, edited by Élise Féron, Jyrki Käkönen, and Gabriel Rached, 1st ed., 105–30. Verlag Barbara Budrich, 2019.
https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvr00xjn.10.
PRINSLOO, CYRIL. "Bolsonaro and the BRICS: Bull in a China Shop?" South African Institute of International Affairs, 2019.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep25947.
Prys-Hansen, Miriam, and Detlef Nolte. "BRICS Und IBSA: Die Clubs Der Aufsteigenden Mächte Verlieren an Glanz." German Institute of Global and Area Studies (GIGA), 2016.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep21163.
Rached, Gabriel. "BRICS and the Emergent Countries in the Twenty-First Century: Discussing Contemporary Perspectives." In Revisiting Regionalism and the Contemporary World Order: Perspectives from the BRICS and Beyond, edited by Gabriel Rached, Élise Féron, and Jyrki Käkönen, 1st ed., 83–104. Verlag Barbara Budrich, 2019.
https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvr00xjn.9.
Ujvari, Balazs. BRICS Bloc(k) Rising? European Union Institute for Security Studies (EUISS), 2015,
http://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep06761.
