How to cite this journal: Author, Date of the post, WMO Conflict Insight, Title of the post, ISSN: 2628 6998, https://worldmediation.org/journal/
ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the ongoing difficulties and future challenges that BRICS nations face on their way to a meaningful political impact and supplementary relevance on a global level. More often than not, stakeholders and decision-makers ignore crucial and fundamental necessities that societies request in order to enable and initiate a sustainable and lasting process of growth. Potentially, politicians in charge may be aware of the importance of such anthropological puzzle pieces and, accordingly, should put them on their agenda. Reality seems to prove that the general focus is widely placed on targeting and canvassing short-term financial turnovers and outcomes related to the balancing or unbalancing process of global impact only. Forecasting the failure of such progress, this chapter offers a more convenient strategy to find one’s position within the global community based on mutual respect, shared responsibility, and a holistic approach to peacebuilding.
KEYWORDS
Social identity, global alliance, political divergence, multilateral fragmentation, global stability, sustainable world order, holistic peacebuilding
INTRODUCTION
Starting off our journey through this chapter, I would like to create a common ground of understanding by having a brief look at the status quo of the BRICS community in the year 2026. Being initially a group of interest, Goldman Sachs researcher Jim O’Neill discussed the geopolitical relevance of Brazil, Russia, India, and China in 2001 (O’Neill 2001) and thereby potentially introduced the proper term and existence of BRIC (Mostafa 2013). It only makes sense to mention that South Africa was accepted as the first additional or joining member in 2010 (Harrison 2018). Based on this action, South Africa formed the fifth member of the alliance, made the name change to the common term of BRICS, and complemented the group in a meaningful geopolitical way (Erdmann 2024b).
By reviewing the economic history of the group’s members, we can see that all such states underwent crucial economic changes and faced challenging financial situations in the late 20th century (EFSAS 2023). The awareness of the members’ natural resources, the increasing level of global consumption, the improvement of price strategies, and the expanding worldwide interlinked trade established later overall economic stability within the above-listed states (EFSAS 2023). Nowadays, this group finds itself in an economically comfortable situation (Erdmann 2024a), controlling a meaningful quantity of worldwide natural resources and obtaining a key role in global trade (Iqbal 2021).
Being still a purely economic-oriented alliance, the group could not be more diverse in a multitude of aspects. Potentially, this and the complexity of the alliance per se are one reason why it took the group 25 years to grow from the initial four states to a more significant number of members (Glogowski 2024). Even though the number of states being interested in partnering with BRICS extends this number by far, we may still find a lack of a focused and determined agenda explaining what BRICS actually stands for.
The currently available communiqués look like lists of interests stated by the broad quantity of members and partners, while every country intends to get the individual points on. Especially the vague formulation of an agenda bears many uncertain aspects that can turn out to become an uncomfortable setting for countries that find themselves in this specific economic alliance. While being part of BRICS, many of these members strengthen their independence and stability by trading with potential opponents of the group (Erdmann 2024b). This inconformity and contradiction gives birth to an inner instability that prevents BRICS from building the solid and impactful global force that it might look for, namely to become an entity that strongly leads or manages the worldwide economy and politics at the same time, based on its all-embracing network and level of fundamental natural resources.
MAIN CORPUS
A hyper-diverse global alliance called BRICS
The subject of our analysis often presents itself as a fast-growing economic unity that stands up in order to challenge the potentially existing Western financial trade order and to reorganize such towards a much-needed balance or towards leading it into the opposite extreme. Even though such a balancing and unbalancing process, depending on one’s perspective, takes place continuously, we are now having a look at the uniqueness of the M.U.M. Model (Erdmann 2024b). This model relates to global politics and describes the ongoing shift between multipolarism and unipolarism and vice versa, as it presents itself specifically at the beginning of this millennium.
The nature of this phenomenon is based on the struggle between the often labelled and perceived Western and Eastern alliances, targeting economic dominance and impact on a global level. This process entails dynamics that describe a constant movement from multipolarism towards a potentially brief phase of balance, and a further development to the status of unipolarism, before setting the frame for a new epoch of multipolarism. This concept outlines the notion that terms and concepts repeat themselves over and over again. The process of improving repetition can be visualized by imagining a spiral staircase, showing that one constantly arrives at the same spot, but on a new level of escalation (Erdmann 2024b).
Putting this into practice and being aware of the scheduled picture of global dominance, we also want to paint a picture based on our own research and on our own understanding of this situation, being highly interlinked with the world community and with what is potentially needed by mankind and less by a few stakeholders. When we talk about BRICS, we exchange on a global alliance that stretches over four continents, currently counts nine full member countries, and recently accepted thirteen partner countries (Norton 2024). In order to identify even more complexity, we need to say that its members are spread over four continents, while some of them economically partner with and on all five continents. We also see that a common understanding of what BRICS stands for and what it targets is lacking in the portfolio of the alliance. As such a common ground is missing, it turns out to be highly difficult to create or even imagine a strategy that supports the achievement of such a goal, and a path that maintains such a status once it was achieved. Furthermore, it remains entirely unclear how full members derive greater benefits from their membership status compared to countries that are recognized solely as partners.
The fact that BRICS finds itself being completely decentralized turns out to be often communicated as an impactful selling point, while it could also materialize as being the weakest point in the portfolio. Sharing the mutual interest of common economic growth, the alliance includes a broad quantity of languages, cultures, political systems, diverse trade partners, and foremost a wide frame of economic competencies and capabilities of its members (Solomon 2022), while the last point may not match with all partners, as many of them suffer tremendously from their economic instability. This level of diversity turns this alliance into a highly heterogeneous group (BpB 2023) and maybe into the most diverse group that ever existed in modern history on a global scale. The ongoing strategic expansion of BRICS forms part of the alliance’s goal to raise its economic power and natural resources based on global relevance (Tseen Fu 2024). A closer and critical view may disclose that the potential goal of the alliance is simply to create a trade network of natural resource owners, producers and consumers, excluding what may be labelled as Western countries. A far too long potential exclusion from the so-called Western world order makes members of the alliance wish to strike back by continuously admitting new members, propagating inclusiveness (Tseen Fu 2024), and increasing the level of country-based diversity to a more extensive and questionable level. Obviously, the claimed inclusiveness turns out to be highly selective.
Based on such a diverse range of starting points, interests, and capabilities, setting up such an alliance turns out to be an extraordinary challenge, while the transcontinental and inter-political character of its members specifically reinforces the complexity of making such a construct grow in a sound and sustainable way (Erdmann 2024a), especially when potential authoritarian regimes and opposing economic relations are compressed into one group. Nonetheless, besides already being extraordinarily diverse, BRICS continues to extend the quantity of its members and partners and thereby raises the level of inner complexity. A brief look at some fundamental core members of BRICS, namely China and India, shows how two almost historic rivals find themselves put into one alliance, still being and remaining highly competitive opponents on a multitude of levels. Interestingly enough, Russia takes over the role of a mediator in order to bring such members closer together (Baunov 2024). Four of the recently admitted members are likewise involved in complex disputes. Saudi Arabia and Iran are trapped in a long-term dispute on regional predominance and political integrity (Desta 2011), while Egypt and Ethiopia find themselves involved in an ongoing contradiction on natural resources, namely the Nile’s water dispute (BpB 2023).
A baseless iceberg?
Considering the ambitious growth and overall potential target of BRICS, namely to be the rebalancing tool in world economics, we may wonder where this vision and motivation actually comes from. The worldwide economic playground offers a multitude of alliances for countries to join, to actively participate in, and to create overall lasting benefits. Forming part of or being a member of the G20 and BRICS at the same time is such an ambivalent example that it raises many questions. All founding members of BRICS, including South Africa, are members of the G20, while they identified the need not only to join a more likely Western-run alliance, but also to be part of an opposing alliance that challenges the economic stability of several member states from the previously mentioned compound. Such a contradiction does not support one’s credibility in having one clear vision but more likely creates uncertainty on a global scale, actually a feature that mankind currently does not need at all, and potentially turns out to be a very poor political strategy that supports fragmentation instead of unification.
When features like mutual exchange, respect, and understanding support socio-economic peace and balance, what does fragmentation and exclusion mean to global society? It can be stated that the process of fragmentation turns out to be an impactful strategic tool, especially when a group achieves and thereby defines a certain level of self-confidence and power within the global scale. Sufficient resources show that fragmenting groups strategically exclude broad parts of a community in order to destabilize it, and to create a specific image of an enemy (Erdmann 2024c). Hereby, the recently created splinter groups are subject to the aggressor in number and power. Such dynamics can also be found during prosecution and ethnic cleansing (Zartman 2010).
The more we challenge the peak of the iceberg, namely the image of BRICS that is communicated to the broad public, the more complex and confusing the setting of this potential alliance becomes. Step by step, we may discover that it looks like a bottomless construct that is lost in its own complexity. You may see that one can even challenge the term alliance, as such traditionally identifies a group of countries or parties that share one common goal or interest (Cambridge 2025). The previously mentioned communiqués and the global economic interlinkages of the group’s members show more likely interests in all possible political directions, while some look for economic growth, others target financial stability, still others try to enrich their global network, and finally some aim to look as challenging as possible towards potential Western opponents and to impress such in a meaningful way (Baunov 2024). This seems to be the new identity of BRICS in the present era, namely to focus on the number of members and potentially less on the realistic, productive impact new partners may provide. Hereby, it seems to be worth noting that potential natural resources that a partner or member may provide, in combination with an unstable political system, do not turn out automatically to be a supportive feature to such an alliance. Furthermore, members need to observe the overall political behaviour of member and partner countries. Forming part of a group also means that other stakeholders’ actions look to be supported or at least tolerated. Accordingly, admitting new members to BRICS while continuously battling Ukraine may also serve as a wider legitimation for the Russian leadership to proceed in this political direction.
Nobody can deny that joining BRICS as a member or partner in these times serves as a clear political message towards the global community. Such countries should be well aware of the meaning of this symbolic act, namely that they support what BRICS members commonly stand up for or what they tolerate. Here, a potential anti-Western perspective may serve as a common point of interest (Baunov 2024), while most members remain involved in trading with a multitude of such Western countries. Generally, we can observe that joining a group incorporates and requests two fundamental points, namely that each member supports the overall group target and supports what, more precisely, individual peer members stand up for. This simple fact perfectly underlines the level of contradiction that BRICS finds itself in, especially referring to handling dual memberships in pro and contra Western alliances. Whether it may be the potentially anti-Western course, the unclear overall target of BRICS, or the Russian dominance in constantly inviting new members (Baunov 2024), this uncertainty does not attract everyone. It is worth noting that Argentina and Kazakhstan resigned from joining, while the role of Saudi Arabia actually remains unclear as no official confirmation of a joining act can be identified (Baunov 2024). The fact that Russia, based on its activism, put itself apparently into the position of a presidency of BRICS made the group’s character change from an initially cooperative alliance that targets mutual development into some sort of a plaything of unpredictable anti-Western propaganda, losing itself in the baseless complexity of a self-focused worldview and biased global interests.
Even though such a global partnership has the potential to float solidly like an iceberg, its intransparency beneath the surface extends to such a crucial level that its baselessness starts creating a downforce instead of supporting the complete superstructure. The fundamental question may be what measures need to be taken to turn the currently existing construct into a globally responsible, well-respected alliance that supports peace, mutual respect, and socio-economic growth, if this is the goal at all.
An unfortunate coincidence?
The topic of the organization’s credibility is far more complex than only the issue of socio-economic transparency. Currently, there does not exist one single updated document that displays, in a transparent way, all members of this construct. Even though potential members are listed on websites, on platforms, and in media channels, the specific level of membership is not clear. Hereby, the public cannot easily identify which country is a full member, which one is a partner country, which one maintains friendly relations, which country is an applicant for membership, and which country delayed or cancelled the joining process and for what reason (Council on Foreign Relations 2025). Furthermore, no officially signed joining memoranda are accessible to the public. Such are circumstances that truly challenge a belief in an upright ambition to increase one’s membership numbers and global impact in a sound way. Far more confusing remains the fact that it is constantly highlighted how many countries participate in the annual summits, while it remains unclear which role they play in such events. The question is, what kind of countries are attracted by such a foggy environment?
Unfortunately, there is another critical topic that needs to be discussed, especially when talking about transparency and international standards. This context overshadows the current setting of the alliance but is seldom addressed. The reason therefore may be the unpopularity of the topic per se, but it absolutely needs to be brought to the table, especially by representing the perspectives and the interests of being heard by potential victims. Third party reports communicate that several member countries of this alliance show human rights violations within their territories (U.S. Department of State 2025).
In order to use an additional source and to be able to analyze, from another angle, how deep-rooted and complex the issue presents itself in the current era, the reports of Amnesty International may offer additional insights (Amnesty International 2026), in order to better comprehend the information shared by other reporting bodies. Based on these burdening reports, it may not be sufficient to proclaim a condemnation of war, as commonly done during annual summits, especially when the addressed conflicts solely take place between labelled Western countries and potential BRICS members (Lima 2025), while issues that take place within the members’ own territories are not addressed and are silenced. Here, a superficial polishing of the topic may not be sufficient. It is definitely needed to address the topic in a seriously critical way and to create a path of getting back on track, following what was agreed on in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UN 1948), a document that was signed by a significant number of BRICS related countries.
Addressing this critical topic and initiating credible requested action, in order to counter the current circumstances, may generate a higher level of global acceptance of member countries or of the alliance at all, while the question remains why not all member countries signed this document and what this specifically means to the other associated countries that automatically stand in for or back up the other joining members’ political setting by attending one common alliance.
Ordo ab chao
Considering BRICS is currently more likely a rag rug of nations longing for sustainable economic growth and wealth management, we may commonly agree that there is no access to wealth without prior management. Such management needs to initiate a process that all members, partners, and joining applicants evaluate as useful and that all of them are willing to follow up on. This common understanding can be a cornerstone of an overall identity that supports a much needed ordo ab chao, order out of chaos. Obviously, such a process of change takes time and definitely starts by every one of such partners before possibly spreading from partner to partner or generating an overall code of conduct, or better said, a common identity that supports the respectful and peaceful growth of the global community. And of course, such an achievement may only be possible by leaving behind the constant labelling and setting up of Western and Eastern opposing countries, in order to finally understand all of us being global citizens.
Here, we need to face one specific reality, namely that the level of diversity that BRICS covers surpasses existing regional and continental alliances and unions by far. In this way, BRICS may not be compared to any other existing union, such as the European Union, the African Union, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or the Union of South American Nations. Its complexity of cultures, languages, religions, and economic necessities makes this construct face very unique challenges. Currently, we do not see indications that support the understanding that BRICS will grow from within in order to become sound (Erdmann 2024a), grow in a sustainable way, and build a lasting global value for mankind, as previously requested. This status might continue, while the focus remains on growing, promising new members credibility and legitimacy (Adams 2023).
Having such widespread diversity as a foundation, we may understand that what is needed looks like a common creed or a transborder identity that reconciles differences and harmonizes diversity in an all-embracing way. So, the term identity offers us a very complex nature and a rich scale of interpretations. As soon as the consciousness is sharpened and a human individual realizes their proper existence, the quest for an identity is born. Identity per se is a multilayered word that is of importance on an individual level, a group level, a regional level, a national level, a continental level, and may reach its climax on a global level, including ethnicities, languages, creeds, and cultures. Even though we may identify a multitude of different sorts of identities, they all seem to have one common denominator, namely the quest for a harmonic and organized aspect.
Accordingly, we may imagine that it is basically a very tricky and challenging project to create or build a truly transborder identity, while what is needed is something that people can believe in, that connects them, and that motivates them to start talking about themselves as a sound community. What we are looking for is the still missing central puzzle piece that completes the artwork and that gives a higher meaning to angles, visions, and perspectives. This puzzle piece could turn chaos into order and provide BRICS with the opportunity to stop being a potentially unpredictable underdog who challenges an existing global construct. BRICS could leave this image behind and start growing solidly within itself and within the global community in order to become a cornerstone for global balance, peace, and harmony. This missing link, or still transborder identity, can only be identified and developed by the community of BRICS itself (Yzerbyt 1997), and starts with the discernment that only merged puzzle pieces complete the picture, or that all countries are needed to build a lasting global community. The form, structure, and character of a puzzle piece is crucial when we identify its place within the overall artwork, while the piece itself merges perfectly with the bigger picture by not focusing on its proper borders any longer. Thus, the ultimate goal, on a global level, should be to leave proper personal interests behind, and to merge into a community of conscious and truly interdependent partners.
SUMMARY
The revision sharpens the argument at the point where it is most easily dismissed as abstract, by asking what can actually be established about the association. The finding is that no authoritative document sets out who belongs to it and in what capacity, that no accession instruments are published, and that the annual summits report attendance without specifying the standing of those attending. From this the author draws a conclusion that does not depend on any political position: an association whose membership cannot be ascertained cannot be held to anything, because there is no record of who undertook what. The second addition applies the same test to conduct rather than to form, observing that declarations condemning wars between others sit alongside silence about conditions within the members’ own territories, and that a group whose members are documented as violating undertakings they have signed acquires a collective problem of credibility whether or not it acknowledges one.
CONCLUSION
In order to be able to build a transborder identity that truly combines a high level of diverse members of a group, we need to understand the uniqueness of this common goal, and the specific challenges of the setting in question. Traditionally, a group identifies itself as such based on a common language, dialect, culture, history, or tradition (Akuche 2016). Obviously, not all members of the wider BRICS circle are completely different, but they are potentially diverse. Some of them share languages, but not dialects; others share religions, but not their traditions within them. Here, we can clearly see that diversity is unequal to fragmentation, which more likely is the counterpart of unity. This gives us a very crucial hint, namely that diversity can still be or become the starting point that has its peak in some level of unity. Having stated in the beginning that the high level of nations’ diversity may be the weak spot of BRICS, we find ourselves at the point of turning a fragile ornament into the truss of a superstructure. This means that if it turns out to be possible to build an identity of BRICS members, it should also be realistic to build an even stronger identity, namely the identity of a global community, incorporating all puzzle pieces, as previously mentioned and requested.
We may have learned so far that building a transborder identity is more likely an extensive task, especially as setting the foundation of a common understanding begins with each participant and targets the overall conformity of the sum of such diverse individuals, longing to label themselves members of a homogeneous group. Here, we may challenge the traditional concepts of strategic economic growth and the methods that accordingly are based on building inclusive and exclusive alliances, such as the G20, the G7, BRICS, and NATO, more often than not benefitting from this process of economic and political fragmentation. The question that we need to analyze for ourselves is whether such an exclusive mindset still meets today’s necessities, in a global and multilateral world, and if we can justify such a path in a dialogue with upcoming generations.
Reflections may unveil that exclusive behaviour often turns out to be a strong hint towards an advanced level of fear of loss, of disadvantage, and of being left behind in general. Based on the general global connectivity, referring to individuals, companies, organizations, and countries, one may strongly doubt that building economic borders supports global growth. Accordingly, and as previously stated, putting a name on everything and everyone supports exclusiveness, which per se is often a door opener for fragmentation and extremism (Erdmann 2024c). What mankind potentially needs in a time of economic and social insecurity is a common creed that binds all humans together at the bottom of their hearts. Namely a creed that is so fundamental that it touches and supports basic human necessities, namely stability, peace, and harmony. If we do not build harmony at the grassroots level of the individual and their family, we have no space to further develop a sound identity that surpasses borders and that embraces the wealth of mankind.
It may already be sensed where this will possibly take the global community. BRICS, but more likely mankind per se, needs to create a real consciousness of a global community and, more specifically, the awareness that today’s exclusiveness and fragmentation do not support real stability and global growth in the long term but always support that only very selective groups that initiate such processes benefit from those dynamics. In order to initiate such a change, we need politicians who act like responsible adults and who understand that owning the biggest piece of the cake does not automatically grant satisfaction, not in the long run, and potentially less to all of us. Based on what has been written so far, we all may imagine a world without the previously mentioned trade associations and unions. Mankind may envision that a common level of true responsibility towards the planet Earth and mankind is much needed, far beyond self-centred and ignorant behaviour that is based on and that supports chaotic circumstances in the human mindset and on the surface that we walk on.
Therefore, BRICS, and again mankind in general, needs an agenda that clearly communicates, in a reasonable and realistic way, shared values that offer tranquillity on a global level and enable mankind to develop a common identity, not as individuals but as a global community. Such a common identity could also be the true recognition of the Declaration of Human Rights, that would enable all countries to meet upon one level, to exchange and to treat each other based on righteousness. Hereby, it is crucial to discharge the importance of a labelling name and not to put an excluding acronym in the front row, such as BRICS, the G20 or the G7. Now, it is humankind that counts first, it is humankind that needs to turn into a global community of mutual respect and responsibility, it is humankind that needs to connect and grow from within, and it is humankind that does not need a name to differ, because it already got a name that binds all of them together, citizens of the world.
POTENTIAL SOLUTION *
The transparency argument is the strongest thing in this revision and it is worth separating from the political assessment that surrounds it, because it stands on its own and is harder to answer.
An association that publishes no accession instruments, maintains no authoritative list of members and their status, and reports attendance at summits without specifying capacity, has no ascertainable membership. The consequence is not merely presentational. Commitments made in a communiqué bind whoever agreed to them, and where it cannot be established who agreed, nothing binds anyone. The comparison the author sets aside is instructive here rather than inapt: the European Union publishes its treaties, the African Union its Constitutive Act, and both maintain registers of ratification precisely because an institution that cannot demonstrate who is a member cannot enforce anything against anyone. This is an institutional design question rather than a political one, and it admits of a straightforward remedy that costs nothing and that no member could reasonably oppose.
Two observations on the human rights passage. The most difficult version of the argument is not that member states have poor records, which is true of members of every large grouping including those the author contrasts them with, but the one the text arrives at in its final paragraph: that association implies a degree of endorsement, and that a body which condemns conduct by non-members while remaining silent about equivalent conduct among its own acquires a selectivity problem that undermines the standing from which it speaks. That argument applies with equal force to every grouping, which is what makes it a general proposition about multilateral bodies rather than a criticism of one, and stating it that way makes it considerably harder to dismiss. Relatedly, the sourcing would be strengthened by drawing on bodies whose reports cannot be characterised as partisan by the states concerned: the treaty bodies of the United Nations, the special procedures of the Human Rights Council, and the universal periodic review examine every member state on the same criteria, including those whose governments commissioned the reports the author cites.
Two further points bear on the constructive proposal. A minimal standard of association is achievable in a way that a shared identity is not, and it is what comparable groupings have adopted: published criteria for admission, an accessible register, a code of conduct, and a procedure for suspension. None of these requires anyone to agree about values, and each would answer the specific defect the author identifies. And the concluding proposal that the Universal Declaration serve as the common ground is well chosen for a reason worth stating: it was adopted without a dissenting vote, its substance has been incorporated into instruments ratified by every state in the grouping, and it is therefore the one text on the table that no member can characterise as an external imposition. Where a shared identity must be built and cannot be invented, an existing common undertaking is the only available foundation.
Finally, the metaphor of the puzzle piece that ceases to attend to its own borders states, in the author’s own terms, the finding this journal has reached repeatedly from other directions. Identities are not dissolved by the discovery of a larger one; they are held within it, and the arrangements that work are those in which belonging to the whole does not require anyone to stop being what they were. That is the dual identity finding, and it is the mechanism by which the aspiration in the closing paragraph could become something other than an aspiration.
*Added by the WMO Editorial Team
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Further reading added by the WMO Editorial Team
Agreement on the New Development Bank, Fortaleza, 15 July 2014, and the Treaty for the Establishment of a BRICS Contingent Reserve Arrangement, 2014.
Kazan Declaration of the XVI BRICS Summit, 23 October 2024, and subsequent summit declarations.
Constitutive Act of the African Union, 2000, and the Treaty on European Union, consolidated version, on the publication of accession instruments and criteria for membership.
Universal Periodic Review, Human Rights Council, and the reports of the United Nations human rights treaty bodies.
Acharya, A. (2018). Constructing Global Order: Agency and Change in World Politics. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Stuenkel, O. (2020). The BRICS and the Future of Global Order (2nd edition). Lexington Books, Lanham.
Gaertner, S. L., & Dovidio, J. F. (2000). Reducing Intergroup Bias: The Common Ingroup Identity Model. Psychology Press, Philadelphia.
Risse, T. (2010). A Community of Europeans? Transnational Identities and Public Spheres. Cornell University Press, Ithaca.