3 Minute Gold News – BRICS Summit Oct 22, 2024

The Valdai Discussion Club is made up of the Russian intellectual elite and opinion-makers.

It published an article yesterday on BRICS and the international order.

https://valdaiclub.com/about/valdai/

British journalist Angus Roxburgh described the Club as part of the Russian propaganda effort. – wikipedia

BRICS has started their 2024 Summit in Russia.

Putin has publicly greeted India’s Modi with an overwhelming show of affection, to give the world the impression that they are so close they can be understood without a translator.

The angle is that the US has an unfair monopoly, and BRICS has the power to create a new fair order for the whole world.

That the US has already lost its power and the new order can come the hard way or the easy way – war or else accepting what the BRICS will put together to create a new order.

China “took from the West almost everything it needed in the past decades.” says this writer.

Here’s a synopsis:

The statements are the writer’s and my views are in parenthesis.

Published October 21, 2024, a day before the summit began.

BRICS Before the Kazan Summit: The Dialectic of Creation and Destruction Against the Backdrop of a New World Order

International politics right now is not going in a straight rational line from point A to point B.

That straight line would be a world war.

But, If the international order is revised, then there is a low chance of world war.

China, India and Russia are the leading states of the “international community” and they are working on revising the world order.

They are choosing between the process of building a new order or destroying the old.

(He’s saying they are the leaders, the old order is already over, and that they get to choose if they want to either build a new order while the US submits, or else they just destroy the US order with revolution and war.)

They call the US and western world the “outgoing world order”.

They call the current system powers the “opponents of the international community” and “a narrow group of countries led by the US.”

He says the US and western world has privileges, and the war in Ukraine is being used by them to preserve those privileges.

There isn’t a clear and simple path to a “new, more just global order” because the US and the western countries want to keep their advantages.

The US and its allies have “very solid resources and influence, which are not limited to punitive instruments against dissenters.”

(So, the US and its allies are very powerful, and they have ways to bring in more players and make their group power larger.)

This makes the “path of revising the international order” more difficult, where a world war would be easier.

BRICS success gives the writer optimism they will succeed, (as they are trying to go the difficult route of overthrowing the current system without a world war) and gives “more chances that everything that is happening now will be studied by someone in the future.”

There are many initiatives and undertakings to dethrone the US, but BRICS is the most important.

BRICS is made of nations that have the power to change the balance of power and dethrone the US.

It is made of nations whose desire to work together to overthrow the current power balance is so strong they are willing to put their own difference aside.

BRICS means the West cannot keep the “evolution of international governance under its control.”

(So, this means that the West could work towards avoiding war and negotiating to evolve the current global system, but BRICS doesn’t want the US to control the process or be part of it.)

All international architecture, starting with the UN, is a product of the US and Western Europe. (This is true.)

In the past, changing the power balance involved war – a revolution.

The West is “increasingly and stubbornly” trying to defend the previous and extremely comfortable order for itself.

(So, this article is attempting to put forward that the current world order is already the past world order, and that they are just trying to peacefully create a more fair world for themselves through negotiation.

They are trying to get the West to believe that they have already been defeated, and therefore to surrender, in order to avoid a world war.)

BRICS is an instrument of civilized restructuring to overthrow the West’s monopoly on power.

So many countries want to join BRICS that the current members have a serious choice.

BRICS was started to help its members develop.

Now it is choosing whether to become an organization aimed at destroying the whole current US led system instead of just developing the current member nations.

After World War II, the Western countries were able to create institutions that allowed them to keep the USSR under control and ultimately doomed it to defeat.

Now the situation has changed.

The writer says BRICS members believe they can stop the US from having a global power monopoly.

BRICS believes that even if the West leads in military and economic spheres, it won’t have complete dominance when they’re done.

“But the West is making efforts to destroy what it is no longer able to fully control.

It pushes others to take more decisive measures, or to think about their inevitability.”

(The writer believes the US is pushing for war by not giving up its monopoly.)

This, in particular, is the reason for some differences in approaches to the BRICS agenda between its most important participants – China and India.

CHINA, INDIA & RUSSIA

He writes, China is not seeking a direct clash with the West, but wants to more consistently eliminate the monopoly of the United States and Europe.

Beijing has significant resources for this, as well as the diplomatic ability to achieve its goals without entering into direct armed confrontation.

So does Russia.

India, for its part, sees BRICS as an essential tool for achieving its own development goals.

But India needs the United States and Europe as an important source of technology and investment.

China doesn’t need the US because it “took from the West almost everything it needed in the past decades.”

China and India can “no longer, due to their scale, put up with the Western monopoly.”

They are both acting within the framework of the dialectic (two opposing views interacting) of destruction and creation.

China can go with destruction because it has the ability to “independently protect its interests.”

“China’s is now on top simply due to the development of its economy and the growing well-being of its population.”

The rest of the nations cannot independently protect their own interests and so they don’t have the option of destruction, and are going with the angle of creating.

Each of the nations are building their internal forces and resources.

So, how inevitable is it that this dialectic will move to being destructive? (He’s threatening that if the US doesn’t give up its monopoly now, it will be forced to soon.)

Turkey is “curious” he says. It wants to join BRICS, but is a member of NATO and a base for US nuclear forces in Eurasia. Turkey is also a formal ally of Washington.

They could be a Trojan horse for the West, or they could be legitimately looking to move to BRICS for their own development.

Malaysia wants to join BRICS, and it looks like it’s for their own development.

The US is not going to have lots of resources to help other nations develop.

Europe is vulnerable and suffering, and so the US is not going to want to help other nations develop, and then see them become Europe’s competitors.

This article believes the US and the West are going to give less and demand more from their allies going forward.

Ultimately, he says, the US can only truly rely on those countries whose political systems it completely controls. It will only work for weak nations, and the US will not want to see those nations become stronger.

The cold war between the US and USSR gave the space for China to grow. But now the US is in a position where it only gains by destroying others to keep control.

Growing nations would be better off working with BRICS to overthrow the US and the West, and work with China and BRICS.

(Looks like the article is aimed at persuading mid-sized nations to join their team.)

The US will only negotiate for deals that keep a complete dominance of the West, “maintaining the monopoly position of the United States and the European Union in world affairs, as well as the irreplaceability of the elites in these countries at the domestic political level.”

BRICS will only be successful if they overthrow the West and create a new system that benefit the countries in BRICS.

(BRICS have their own elites.

This writer believes there will either be a world war to create the new order or else enough nations will create the new order together in their own best interests and the US and the West will just surrender to it and be forced to go along under it.)

There will be uncertainty in international politics and the world economy until the “destruction or creation” is done.

There will not be a clear forming of strategic objectives on the national or international levels.

“Any attempts at such clarity will only be signs of attempts by individual countries to mislead others and thereby gain unilateral advantages.”

My thoughts:

This writer wants the reader to believe that there is no alternative to overthrowing the US led system, China and India have to grow, that it’s a done deal, and now we can either do this the hard way or the easy way.

The writer wants the reader to believe that the BRICS is for global good and if the overthrow has to be done by war then it’s the West’s fault, because they didn’t surrender their monopoly and accept the terms of the BRICS, who are looking out for the good of all.

This is a Russian think tank saying this, instead of China, which would look more aggressive and confrontational.

Looks like a good cop, bad cop play.

Of course each party is looking to gain advantages. That’s each nation’s job. He has clearly said that BRICS nations are looking to gain advantages at the West’s expense.

This looks like he is front-running in case Donald Trump wins the US election and begins negotiations to do more business with more nations, to grow the global economic pie.

Trump has said many times that he prefers more business and that he does not want war.

It looks like Trump is the dialectic lean towards creation and not towards destruction. So this writer wants the international community to believe they will be better off with BRICS and China leading, as opposed to the US leading.

He clearly says that even if the US stays the leader in military and economic spheres, it doesn’t need to have a monopoly. That’s where negotiations can begin.

The writer gives his opinion of Russia’s position:

“For Russia, maintaining uncertainty is not a problem: in the end, we are now dealing with a constant freedom of choice, which is best suited to Russian foreign policy and diplomacy, judging by our historical experience.”

So Russia is letting the US know that it is not choosing war or negotiation, one or the other. They are open to negotiation if Trump gets it.

He’s saying China isn’t looking for war, but if the US won’t give up its monopoly on global institutional power, then China won’t just keep the status quo, because they need to grow, and don’t need to avoid war.