BRICS at 20: From Political Weight to Strategic Power

Two decades after the foreign ministers of Brazil, Russia, India and China first met in New York in September 2006, BRICS has evolved from a political grouping into a much broader institution of the emerging multipolar order. What began as an expression of dissatisfaction with an international system dominated by Western powers has acquired a far wider footprint. BRICS now includes additional members, operates its own development bank, and engages across trade, technology, energy, finance and global governance. Its demographic scale, economic weight and political reach give the group an influence that was difficult to imagine when the grouping first emerged.

But its expansion has created a fundamental strategic dilemma. The larger BRICS becomes, the greater its potential influence, but the harder it becomes to convert that influence into coherent collective action. The central question at 20 is therefore not whether BRICS has become important. It clearly has. The question is whether it can transform its growing political weight into durable strategic power without destroying the flexibility that made its expansion possible.

BRICS cannot realistically become another NATO, European Union or single integrated trading market. Its members do not share a common foreign policy, a joint defence arrangement or unified economic rules. Their national interests frequently diverge, sometimes sharply. India and China remain strategic competitors. Russia's confrontation with the West has placed different pressures on other members. Brazil, India, China, Russia and the newer members approach international crises according to their own calculations. Their economic structures, political systems and strategic priorities also differ considerably.

The central question at 20 is therefore not whether BRICS has become important. It clearly has. The question is whether it can transform its growing political weight into durable strategic power without destroying the flexibility that made its expansion possible.

This points towards a more realistic model for BRICS: cooperation on specific problems where collective action produces tangible benefits. Financial connectivity is perhaps the clearest example. Linking national payment networks could be considerably more achievable than attempting to create a common BRICS currency. A network that allows members to settle more trade in their own currencies would reduce dependence on existing international financial channels without requiring governments to surrender monetary sovereignty.

But even here, political declarations will not be enough. Businesses ultimately determine whether alternative payment arrangements succeed. Local-currency trade must make economic sense for exporters, importers, banks and investors. Exchange-rate risks, convertibility, liquidity, transaction costs and settlement mechanisms all matter. If companies find that local-currency transactions are slower, more expensive or more uncertain than established alternatives, political support alone will not make the system viable.

The New Development Bank presents another important test. BRICS already possesses an institution capable of giving practical expression to its economic ambitions. Its ability to expand development financing in local currencies could become one of the group's most consequential achievements. But, the challenge is operational. Can the bank provide local-currency loans efficiently? Can it manage currency risks while keeping financing affordable? Can borrowers access funds without bureaucratic delays? The credibility of BRICS will increasingly be judged by such practical questions rather than by the number of declarations issued at successive summits.

The same principle applies to diplomacy. BRICS does not need a single foreign policy to become more influential in global governance. Members can support reform of the United Nations Security Council while maintaining independent positions on conflicts and bilateral disputes. They can agree that the current structure of global decision-making does not adequately reflect contemporary economic and demographic realities without pretending that all members share identical geopolitical interests.

Technology offers another field for selective cooperation. BRICS countries can collaborate on artificial intelligence research, digital infrastructure, data systems and technological standards even while competing aggressively for strategic technologies. Cooperation does not require the elimination of competition. Indeed, managing competition while identifying areas of mutual interest may be one of the group's most realistic institutional models.

Artificial intelligence could become particularly significant. The countries of BRICS possess substantial pools of scientific talent, large consumer markets, expanding digital economies and significant state capacity. Shared technical standards could reduce fragmentation and create larger markets for digital services. Joint work on infrastructure and responsible AI standards could also give BRICS a stronger voice in shaping emerging global rules. But technical cooperation itself could become vulnerable if every standards dispute is converted into a political confrontation.

This is where BRICS faces its central contradiction. Its members want a more balanced international order, but they also want to preserve maximum strategic autonomy. They want stronger collective influence without accepting the constraints that normally accompany deep integration. That is not necessarily a weakness. It can become the defining feature of the organisation if BRICS builds institutions designed around flexibility rather than uniformity.

Narendra Modi captured this moment when he observed that BRICS had reached a point where dreams meet responsibility. The statement reflects the transformation of the organisation itself. For two decades, BRICS argued that global power had become increasingly disconnected from the institutions created to govern it. That argument was once largely political. Today, the demographic, financial and economic weight of the expanded grouping gives it substantially greater credibility.

But political weight does not automatically become strategic power. Speeches do not restructure international finance. Declarations do not connect banking systems. Summit communiqués do not create efficient payment networks. Political statements do not make local-currency trade commercially viable. Institutions, financial instruments, technological standards and diplomatic mechanisms do.

The next phase of BRICS will therefore be determined by execution. Can its members connect their banking and payment networks on a genuinely global scale? Can they make local-currency settlement sufficiently efficient for businesses to use it voluntarily? Can the New Development Bank expand local-currency lending without sacrificing speed, financial discipline or credibility? Can BRICS establish digital and technological standards without allowing geopolitical rivalries to paralyse technical cooperation? And can its members build these mechanisms while accepting that disagreement will remain an enduring feature of the group?

These are harder questions than producing ambitious summit declarations, but they are also the questions that will determine BRICS' historical significance.

If its members succeed, BRICS could become one of the permanent institutional pillars of a multipolar international system. Its power would come less from acting as a unified bloc and more from creating parallel channels through which finance, development, trade, technology and diplomacy can operate. Such an outcome would gradually alter the distribution of institutional power without requiring BRICS to become a conventional alliance.

If it fails, BRICS will remain something different: a powerful political statement about the redistribution of global economic and demographic weight, accompanied by institutions that never fully matched that reality.

At 20, BRICS has already demonstrated that the world has changed. Its next decade will determine whether the international system changes with it.