Mapping A Strategic Troika For BRICS+

(MENAFN- Asia Times) Originally published by Pacific Forum , this article is republished with permission.

Donald Trump's election as the 47^th president of the United States in January 2025 heralded a departure from multilateral norms.

In just a few months, the world has witnessed an intensification of trade securitization , escalating tariff wars , the erosion of the WTO system and coercive pressure on countries such as India and Brazil to forgo trade interests tied to their national and energy security.

Of note in these sobering times is the rise in strategic influence of BRICS+, a grouping of 11 emerging and developing economies collectively representing 55% of the world's population , and generating 46% of global GDP (greater than the GDPs of G7 and the EU).

BRICS+ is being increasingly seen as a promising forum that can rebalance the hegemonic global order, evidenced by over 30 countries expressing interest in joining the coalition, either as members or partners.

This growing influence of BRICS+ among postcolonial states and the increasing possibility of a multipolar world order have irked the status quo powers. As a result, the grouping has been labeled“anti-West” and“anti-American ,” and its member states have been called “vampires sucking the US blood dry with unfair trade practices.”

These reductionist and undiplomatic comments by official representatives perpetuate and strengthen the historical Anglocentric bias against pluralist interpretations of world order(s) .

Relevance of Odysseus

In this context, it's pertinent to ask: What's next for international governance and the rules-based global order? Can BRICS+ as a coalition decenter the hegemonic world order? We have an unlikely exemplar from whom BRICS+ can draw a lesson or two: Odysseus, the Greek hero.

Odysseus, the protagonist in Homer's Odyssey, while disguised as a beggar, shrewdly strategizes his way into the famed archery contest and wins it by doing something hitherto deemed impossible – shooting through 12 axe heads. This enables him to reclaim his household.

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Here, Odysseus emerges as a master strategist and a sharp executor. He not only recognizes, waits for, and uses his kairos, (an opportune moment to take decisive action) but also astutely exercises metis (practical, situational, agile intelligence combining foresight, cunning, adaptability and timing) to achieve his telos (goal, purpose, or end-state) – all while minimizing risk.

BRICS+ and the strategic troika

This strategic troika (represented in Figure 1 below) is apt for BRICS+ to draw some lessons from and strategically balance the current (un)global world order.

Figure 1: The Kairos-Metis-Telos Strategic Troika (Source: Dr. Pranusha Kulkarni)

At the recently convened BRICS meeting, several member states implicitly condemned US trade policies as protectionist , unjust and “tariff blackmail,” as they pushed back against what they saw as reckless unilateral measures impinging upon their national sovereignty. India's External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar urged that international economic and trade practices be“fair, transparent and to everyone's benefit.”

S. Jaishankar also reiterated that the“international trading system is based on the foundational principles of open, fair, transparent, non-discriminatory, inclusive, equitable and a rules-based approach with special and differential treatment for developing countries.”

These words are a powerful and timely reminder of the shared values and norms underlying global governance , and signal the institutionalisation of international trade justice as a policy imperative for groupings like BRICS+.

International trade justice, as articulated by S. Jaishankar, may well come to represent the telos of BRICS+ – the goal, purpose, or end-state that BRICS+ would like to achieve, for the economic well-being of its peoples .

Synergistically working towards realizing this shared telos of institutionalizing a rules-based trading system that accommodates special and differential treatment for developing economies is also very well-aligned with the shifting geoeconomic calculus of building resilient, localized and reliable supply chains , and more recently, shifting trade dependencies by engaging alternative growth markets.

Hence, especially given that Brazil , like India, is also slapped with 50% tariffs by the US, a dominant trading partner for both countries, it is an opportune moment for an international grouping like BRICS+ – despite a multitude of differences and incompatibilities among the members themselves – to decisively act on defining a metis to achieve the shared telos.

A 4-pronged BRICS+ reform agenda: chalking out the metis

To achieve international trade justice as the telos, what would be the practical, situational, and agile intelligence that combines foresight, adaptability, and timing for the BRICS+ grouping? Building on the justice-oriented deliberations in the recent BRICS summit, I propose the grouping should pursue the following 4-pronged reform agenda aiming to institutionalize procedural and distributive justice mechanisms in its organizational design.

As can be seen from the above, I am proposing that BRICS+ proactively become a norm-setter instead of sticking with the passive norm-taker role to which it has been largely relegated in the larger scheme of global politics. Even though, for example, India is running trade deficits with most of the grouping's members, taking coordinated action to reform BRICS as an organization would necessarily be required if we want to salvage the“global” aspects of the“global trading regime.”

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What got us here won't get us there: the way forward

Marshall Goldsmith was right when he reminded us that the strategies, institutions and practices that enabled past success may not be sufficient to meet new global challenges. This is even more so in international relations, where our societies, technologies and geopolitics stand on shifting sands.

All policy is political, and foreign policy is even more so. Even though trade economics calls for objective analyses of nations' comparative advantage to let markets adjust for the supply-demand equation, it has long been acknowledged that assessing the international political economy of trade becomes pertinent when historical trade imbalances are overtly aggravated by unjust and inefficient measures like nationalistic industrial policies , and increased securitization of international trade .

The following figure integrates my proposal for BRICS+:

Just as Odysseus combined his presence of mind, strategy, and skill to encounter his rightful reckoning, the BRICS+ grouping can pave way for resetting the skewed global trade – and the opportune time is now. India's external affairs minister has set the stage by articulating exactly the kind of normative moorings this systemic change needs. It remains to be seen whether this discourse gets the momentum it deserves.

Pranusha Kulkarni, PhD (...) is an assistant professor of general management & public policy at the Goa Institute of Management in India.

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