Can BRICS Finally Take On the West?

The BRICS countries—or BRICS+, since the original grouping of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and later South Africa has since further expanded to include four more members—are meeting this week for their headline summit in glitzy Kazan, Russia, on the banks of the Volga. On the agenda this year, the first full summit after the formal incorporation of Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the United Arab Emirates into the bloc, will be the usual talk of creating a truly multipolar world order to challenge U.S. and Western hegemony. A big part of that, especially for sanctions-battered members such as Iran and Russia, will be efforts to come up with viable alternatives to the global dominance of the U.S. dollar.

One of the more remarkable developments over the last 25 years is that an investment banker’s arbitrary acronym for a quartet of emerging market economies has become the rubric for rebellion.

One of the more remarkable developments over the last 25 years is that an investment banker’s arbitrary acronym for a quartet of emerging market economies has become the rubric for rebellion.

The BRICS countries—or BRICS+, since the original grouping of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and later South Africa has since further expanded to include four more members—are meeting this week for their headline summit in glitzy Kazan, Russia, on the banks of the Volga. On the agenda this year, the first full summit after the formal incorporation of Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the United Arab Emirates into the bloc, will be the usual talk of creating a truly multipolar world order to challenge U.S. and Western hegemony. A big part of that, especially for sanctions-battered members such as Iran and Russia, will be efforts to come up with viable alternatives to the global dominance of the U.S. dollar.

The overarching question this year, 23 years after Goldman Sachs banker Jim O’Neill (now Lord O’Neill) invented the