The dream of a multipolar world has long been eluded the minds of the thinkers of international relations as well as the leaders of the developing world. The end of bipolarity at the end of the dreadful years of cold war did not result in a multipolar world. It eventually resulted in a US dominated unipolar world reeling under its hegemonistic policies of unilateralism both at the political level (i.e. war on terror, Iraq, Afghanistan etc) and at the economic level (WTO summits, World Bank/IMF policies etc). In the event of absence of balance of power with no formidable competitors, the all powerful USA used to call the shots most of the time, if not always. But if we analyze the rise of the BRIC (Brazil-Russia-India-China) phenomenon then the days of US unipolarism can be safely said to be heading for its nemesis. Of course, the US will be the sole superpower and going to be in that way but with BRIC it will surely be seeing a relative decline of its powers worldwide. The emergence of the BRIC countries, therefore, is a welcome thing to happen for all of us here who always long for a multipolar peaceful world.

The term BRIC was coined by the noted global financial analysis and consulting body Goldman Sachs in 2001 and over the years it has been a buzzword in the international relations circuit and a lot of research papers and peer reviews  on it have been gone impeccably noticed across the globe. Goldman Sachs had predicted that BRIC will be the new power bloc competing with the US and the EU in the long run. The idea of BRIC got a major institutional shape this year with the commemoration of the first BRIC summit at Yekaterinburg (near Moscow) in Russia. This is just a beginning. A lot more things are needed to be done in order to transform it into a major intercontinental body with both doctrinal muscle as well as institutional flesh.

Significance of the BRIC countries    

Hans J Morgenthau, the father of political realism has long been prophesized that international politics is nothing more than a "struggle for power". The national interest of every State is defined and played in terms of power, both absolute and relative. There has been no change in over the years with power-play being only constant in this kaleidoscopic world panorama. Hence, the emergence of the BRIC has to have significance in terms of global power balance; otherwise it would not have been discussed or even merit a foot note in world politics today. Obviously, the BRIC countries have tremendous economic potentials to match closely those of the US and the EU. Today, maybe not so big, but in the long-term it could be huge.

• The role of the BRIC states is defined not least by their sheer size - they account for more than one quarter (25.9%) of the world's land surface and over 40% of the global population (2.7 billion people).

• They possess enormous natural resources, industrial potential and cultural strength, and they are regional leaders. Before the world crisis or global recession set in, they were growing at an average rate of 7-10 percent per year consistently and were in the top ten world economies.

• The BRIC countries' GDP has now reached 15 percent of world totals in exchange rate terms, or almost 25% in terms of Purchasing Power Parity (PPP). 

• The American National Security Council's 2009 report titled "Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World", recently recognized that the future will be a multipolar world, in which China and India will join the USA to form a trio of economic giants, while Russia and Brazil will grow much stronger if they manage to stick to modernization plans. The report notes that in the 2040s, the BRIC countries GDP will be bigger than that of the G-7 countries.    

Last update : 10-08-2009 18:23

Keywords : Building a Multipolar World: BRIC by BRIC, Surabh Jyoti Sharma

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