U.S. & BRICSThe BRICS Expansion and the Global Balance of Power
In early September, the BRICS group of five countries with emerging economies announced it would expand its ranks by six nations. This would loosely link together countries representing about 30 percent of global GDP and 43 percent of global oil production. MIT political scientist Taylor Fravel examines the potential and limitations of a bigger BRICS group of countries — and what it means for the U.S.
In early September, the BRICS group of countries with emerging economies — an informal alliance among Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa — announced it would expand its ranks by six nations. Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and UAE are now set to join the BRICS group in the near future. This would loosely link together countries representing about 30 percent of global GDP and 43 percent of global oil production, and some experts have speculated about further expansion of the group in the longer term. To discuss the BRICS development, MIT News spoke with M. Taylor Fravel, an expert on China’s foreign policy and security strategy, who is the director of MIT’s Security Studies Program, as well as the Arthur and Ruth Sloan Professor in MIT’s Department of Political Science.
Q: Why is the BRICS expansion happening now?
A: There’s been interest in expanding for a while. The BRICS primarily appeals to the relatively developed economies in the developing world. But there are huge differences in economic and military power within even the five current BRICS countries. What initially brought them together is the idea that they had shared interests, especially in the economic domain. At the same time, some of these countries have desired to increase their influence in the developing world. You can see how China, Russia, and India have been independently engaging Africa in the last decade. So they each have this desire, and then by acting together they may have more heft, perhaps as a grouping that can represent the interests of the developing world. However, the BRICS is not yet a formal international organization. The BRICS is not yet institutionalized, and I don’t know that it ever will be.
Different states may have different motives for joining, too. For Iran, it gives them a lot more diplomatic space. Iran is a very interesting addition because it has been highly sanctioned by the United States, as Russia has been. That begs the question: What can BRICS do with the rest of the world? It may be more of a grouping that seeks to foster interactions among themselves, to enhance their heft vis-a-vis the world’s most advanced industrialized economies.
