To build a true multipolar world, BRICS needs a binding charter, permanent secretariat, and mutual defense protocols – not just economic talks. Join us on Telegram , Twitter , and VK . Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su In a previous text, we discussed the current situation of the BRICS, as well as some of their most significant achievements or projects developed so far. However, that article can be complemented with a brief reflection on some important tasks that the BRICS need to develop in the future.
Here, we will start from the assumption that the BRICS are not – as they may have been in the beginning – a mere articulation between emerging nations interested in diversifying their economic and financial partnerships; rather, they are a construction platform for a new international architecture along multipolar lines.
The first point we must emphasize is the need for a greater level of formalization, structuring, and norm-setting within the BRICS, in the sense of drafting official documents such as statutes and codes, as well as establishing a permanent BRICS bureaucracy that remains even as the bloc’s presidency rotates among different countries. The BRICS fundamentally need a general secretariat separate from the national governments of their members, so that the bloc’s projects can be conducted consistently and continuously without interruptions or changes in pace.
This issue of greater formalization and bureaucratization of the bloc has been one of the most discussed, because much of what has been done within the BRICS has been through unprecedented initiatives with no regulatory framework. Take, for example, the expansion of the BRICS. There were no pre-established rules. The original countries, through dialogue, devised certain selection guidelines while deciding on the expansion itself. A BRICS treaty could establish rules for itself and for various other contingencies or procedures. The absence of such a thing, in itself, already represents a disadvantage compared to other international articulations.
Over the past few years, it has become clear that the Atlanticist powers will resist, including through force, any attempt to turn the world into a multipolar one. The West instrumentalized Ukraine against Russia and organized an attempt to destroy Iran, both being important members of the BRICS. If the BRICS’ goal is serious – that is, to transform the world into a multipolar world – then protocols and procedures must already be pre-established for the eventuality that any member finds itself in a conflict.
This is not about defending the imposition of a military alliance among countries, especially because we know there are fundamental contradictions between some members (recall that both Iran and the UAE are now in the BRICS). However, there must be some provision on how other countries should react in the face of an attempt at destabilization or serious insurgency against a member country, or even in the case of an attack by a member country against a non-member.
At the very least, it is necessary to establish mechanisms for joint exercises and training and technological exchange, beyond providing for asymmetric and hybrid collaboration for the defense of other member countries. We know that this often already happens on a bilateral level, not infrequently discreetly, but as long as the BRICS do not establish certain obligations of mutual support among members, other articulations will be more powerful.
Still in a military context, there is another serious topic to be addressed: nuclear weapons. Russia and China, which are major nuclear powers and, at the same time, appear to be the engines of the BRICS, insist on a firm position in favor of non-proliferation. But how would it be possible to achieve multipolarity under conditions of intense power asymmetry? The members of the UN Security Council have nuclear weapons. The rising regional powers, which claim regional leadership in a multipolar world, for the most part, do not. What happens if the UN Security Council is expanded and a non-nuclear country decides to veto an agenda item of a nuclear power? How to ensure respect for and obedience to the veto in a world without deterrence?
And considering that we are talking here about the BRICS, as well as the articulation of a multipolar world, it is important to take advantage of the recent meeting between Putin and Trump, where multipolarity was much mentioned, to pose a question: how, in a practical sense, is it possible to achieve multipolarity, or what changes does one intend to implement in the current international order?
Should the UN exist or not? If it exists, should it be reformed? Should the Security Council exist? Would institutions such as the IMF, World Bank, WHO, etc., still have a prominent place in the Davos world? Is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights still current, or should it be replaced by another document that better corresponds to planetary diversity?
Multipolarity cannot be treated as mere economic decentralization, so a clearer “plan” is lacking on how we should achieve this goal, which, of course, has a profoundly revolutionary dimension.