At last week’s BRICS summit in Kazan, China and Russia celebrated the idea of a multipolar world order. Their deepening alliance is presenting the EU with an unprecedented challenge. It must begin transforming itself into a security policy entity in response.
On the way to a group photo: Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin and Narendra Modi at the 2024 BRICS summit.
Maxim Shipenkov / EPA
From Kazan, where the summit of the BRICS group of states took place last week, Western Europe appears to be no more than a very distant peninsula. Perhaps like India or Korea. All it takes is a few turns of the digital globe on Google Earth, and the geopolitical perspective changes fundamentally. Europe lies on the outermost periphery of the Eurasian landmass.
In fact, Kazan, the capital of Russia’s Tatarstan region on the Volga river, served for 48 hours as the alternative center of the world. From Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, the leaders of major emerging economies accepted Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invitation to attend the BRIC states’ annual summit.
The group’s economic power has not yet proved sufficient to create a system of international transactions based on alternative currencies, thus countering the dominance of the dollar. However, dismissing the BRICS countries – the acronym originally stood for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – as no more than a dispersed club of malcontents is a sign of dangerous Western arrogance. Western Europe in particular, including Switzerland, lives in a bubble of imagined security.
The mechanics of 19th century power politics
Of course, there are considerable differences and even substantial conflicts between the states whose representatives traveled to Kazan last week. India is a democracy. Vietnam has sought to secure itself against Chinese encroachment via a strategic agreement with the United States. And although Turkey has refused to join the Western sanctions against Russia, it is militarily a reliable member of NATO.
Having said that, the bloc is also showing signs of deeper integration. In Kazan, China’s president shook hands with India’s prime minister for the first time in five years. Not long before, the two countries had abruptly settled their border dispute in the high mountains of Ladakh, at least formally. Nevertheless, Beijing and Delhi remain rivals.
The BRICS countries do not claim to be in agreement in all areas. Their common interest is in establishing a new balance of power. All else remains rhetoric and staging. The group picture from Kazan is comparable to similar photos taken at a G7 summit or at the Ukraine peace summit on the Bürgenstock in Switzerland. However, the participants could also have been taking part in the Congress of Vienna held in 1814-1815.
Historical analogies are often exhausted after the initial thought. But patterns that can be derived from the past and transferred to the future are exciting. A similar claim drove Greek historian Thucydides to write his history of the Peloponnesian War, which lasted from 431 to 404 BC. In this conflict, democratic Athens and authoritarian Sparta clashed – mainly due to political arrogance on both sides.
Thucydides wrote that observation of this world war of the ancients provided «a clear view of what happened in the past and what – the human condition being what it is – can be expected to happen again some time in the future in similar or much the same ways.» It isn’t history that repeats itself, but rather human behavior.
Kazan as Putin’s success – in Xi’s shadow
Because Russia and China are again ruled by autocrats today, the personalities and calculations of Xi and Putin are relevant factors in the analysis. It is therefore no coincidence that the power-political mechanics of the BRICS group are reminiscent of the coalitions of the 19th century. Until the end of World War II, shifting alliances and contradictions between the great and middle powers were part of the nature of international relations.
Putin in particular has cobbled together a world view that idealizes the time before 1945. Alexander Dugin, the influential political theorist once close to the Russian president, refers in various places in his writings to the Holy Alliance, which was formed in 1815 to protect the imperial monarchies from revolutionary movements. The members – Austria-Hungary, Russia and Prussia – each pursued their own goals, but worked to maintain a balance of power, usually at the expense of the weaker states.
Following the end of World War II, the Allies wanted to put an end to this system, and instead launched the idea of a cooperative security order. The U.N. Charter attempted to outlaw war as a continuation of power politics. However, the West squandered the brief opportunity for a sustainable lasting peace that opened up with the collapse of the Soviet Union. The double standards in the so-called war on terror also cost the U.S. and its allies credibility among developing countries.
Putin initiated the renaissance of power politics in February 2007 with a speech at the Munich Security Conference. «I am convinced that we have reached that decisive moment when we must seriously think about the architecture of global security,» he said there, using Western self-criticism as leverage against the rules-based security order.
Putin’s call for a multipolar world order in Munich immediately turned out to be a concept for restoring Russia’s sphere of influence. Estonia was attacked just a few weeks later – according to all the rules of hybrid warfare: with disinformation, subversion of the Russian-speaking population and hacking attacks. Thanks to the courageous reaction of the country’s president at the time, the Baltic country, which is also a member of NATO, was able to fend off the Russian encroachment on its sovereignty.
The West reacted in earnest only when Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. However, only a minority of countries worldwide have imposed sanctions against Russia. The BRICS summit in Kazan proves that Putin has not been isolated internationally. Together with Xi, China’s president, Putin is celebrating his idea of a multipolar world order. But he is doing so in Xi’s shadow.
In the vacuum before the American elections
China and Russia are wrapping their power-political ambitions in the empty words of Western diplomacy. This was clearly demonstrated last Wednesday when Xi presented the Sino-Brazilian peace plan for Ukraine in Kazan: «Three principles must be strictly respected: no expansion of the battlefield, no escalation of fighting and no provocations from either side,» he said.
Xi made no mention Ukraine’s sovereignty or the U.N. Charter, yet his demands sounded as if they were based on international law. Instead of calling on Moscow to withdraw from the occupied territories, they were preparing the way for a dictated peace. In this way, concepts are reinterpreted within the framework of power politics – similar to the way Putin sold the idea of a multipolar world order as democratic in Munich.
This made the visit of U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres to Kazan all the more problematic. Simply legitimizing a forum for Sino-Russian power politics didn’t prove enough for him. By shaking hands with Putin, who has been declared a war criminal by the International Criminal Court, Guterres discredited the U.N. as a whole – although this fits into the general picture with regard to the Middle East.
In the vacuum before the upcoming American elections on Nov. 5, the BRICS summit has created the potential basis for a geopolitical shake-up. Depending on the outcome of the elections in the U.S., Ukraine may soon be pressured to agree to a cease-fire. This is why Kyiv is currently trying to secure broad support for a peace formula based on the U.N. Charter – while at the same time making offers for a deal between powerful figures.
BRICS self-confidence as a warning
The BRICS states do not represent a return of the Holy Alliance. But they fit in perfectly with the revisionist and imperial goals of the Eurasian autocracies. Xi sees the movement as one of many opportunities to challenge the United States’ role as a superpower. Putin, on the other hand, is creating a set of circumstances by which he can divide the EU and NATO. If Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan can travel to Kazan, why can’t Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban?
On the anniversary of the Hungarian uprising against the communist regime, Orban called for «resistance against the EU.» Together with right-wing Austrian election winner Herbert Kickl and other nationalists, he has founded the «Patriots for Europe» platform, which aims to divide Europe. The points of alignment with the Kremlin’s «multipolar» world order are obvious.
The EU may soon face unprecedented challenges. It is now quite conceivable that Europe could fragment into blocs of states with different interests, played off against each other by the Kremlin and by Beijing. In such a case, Europe would be on the periphery not only from Kazan’s perspective, but also in a global political sense. Over time, this would become true economically as well.
If the U.S. were to withdraw its offer of partnership, and the transatlantic bridge were to fall away, the continent would be largely at the mercy of the Eurasian autocracies. If Ukraine’s resistance against Russia were additionally to collapse, the majority of Europe’s states would lack the capability to defend themselves effectively against a military attack.
These realities are making it increasingly important that the EU begins seeing itself as an entity of security policy. Despite all their differences, European states must agree on fundamental values, while allowing one another sufficient flexibility of action to address individual particularities. The self-confidence being shown by the BRICS countries today should serve as a warning to Europe.
Latest articles
Global reporting. Swiss-quality journalism.
In today’s increasingly polarized media market, the Switzerland-based NZZ offers a critical and fact-based outside view. We are not in the breaking-news business. We offer thoughtful, well-researched stories and analyses that go behind the headlines to explain relevant events in the U.S., in Europe and worldwide. To produce this work, the NZZ maintains an industry-leading network of expert reporters around the globe who work closely with our main newsroom in Zurich.
Sign up for our free newsletter or follow us on Twitter, Facebook or WhatsApp.
Source link : http://www.bing.com/news/apiclick.aspx?ref=FexRss&aid=&tid=67209cf2db53402983b9e3f3edf4bbbe&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nzz.ch%2Fenglish%2Fbrics-groups-rise-is-deepening-global-security-challenges-ld.1854551&c=10213056298573903780&mkt=de-de
Author :
Publish date : 2024-10-28 08:30:00
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.
