Putin Hosts BRICS Summit

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• Putin Hosts BRICS Summit

  So one of the biggest outcomes of the summit is likely to be more symbolic than anything else. The West has wanted to demonstrate that Russia is a pariah state in the international order, that it's isolated on the international arena. And to some extent, the West has succeeded through its sanctions policies and other policies. 

  However, the fact that Russia can convene an international summit with this number of high level delegates suggests that it isn't isolated to the extent the West would like. And so I think more than anything, one of the biggest outcomes is going to be the symbolic nature of it. If Russia can indeed pull off, without any international incidents happening in Kazan, Russia, a large international summit with the leaders, heads of state of Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, as well as the four new members, as well as potentially Turkey, that is going to be a significant achievement.

  So there are going to be four new members, or four members that have actually already been added this year: Iran, United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia, Egypt and also Saudi Arabia is purported to be the fifth member, though, it's the status of its membership is still a bit in flux. So to have those new members coming on and then there are upwards of anywhere between two dozen and 30 other countries that have expressed an interest in also joining group.

  That's significant because these countries span the continents. You have Turkey’s Tayyip Erdogan, who's a longstanding member of NATO, Turkey is the second strongest army within NATO, who has indicated that he's going to attend the summit. And then Turkey might actually want to join the group as well.

  The longstanding objectives of the organization have been to be a counterweight to the West. So, for example, to foster South-South cooperation, to establish an international development bank similar to the World Bank or the other multilateral development banks through which countries can loan, and a bigger objective, which has been talked about in the upcoming summit, is this idea of creating a currency that can be a counterweight to the US dollar, the idea that there could be a reserve currency, that it's not the US currency. 

  It's not at a point where the West should be seriously concerned or alarmed that somehow the dollar is going to be supplanted. But the fact that these discussions are taking place, and the fact that you have a larger number of countries taking part in them is cause for concern. 

  And what will come out of it for the West is to realize one, not only is Russia not as isolated as it hopes, but two, it really does have to do a better job of selling the post-World War 2 liberal order to the countries that we commonly referred to in the global South.

  I think that has been, if nothing else, one of the biggest outcomes of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. There are a lot of countries that have either not explicitly stated that they're opposed to Russia, or they're just not making any comments at all. And so this reinforces the fact that Russia still does have, even if tenuous, somewhat of a sway over a large number of countries.