BRICS’ fragmented response to Middle East war reveals deeper fractures in multipolar ambition and energy geopolitics
Original framing: “Brics doesn’t need a unified voice on Iran war to have a future” — South China Morning Post
Scenario modeling suggests that if BRICS fails to address its members’ competing energy and security interests, it risks fracturing into sub-blocs (e.g., India-Russia vs. China-Iran), accelerating a multipolar arms race. A potential future sees BRICS leveraging its collective market power to impose sanctions on arms dealers (e.g., UAE-based firms) or mediate regional ceasefires, but this requires overcoming its current reliance on fossil fuel revenues. The rise of renewable energy in BRICS (e.g., India’s solar push) could reduce dependence on Gulf oil, altering its calculus on Iran.
BRICS’ fragmentation on the Iran war is not a bug but a feature of its design—a multipolar bloc held together by transactional interests rather than shared values.
The bloc’s expansion to include Gulf petrostates like the UAE has diluted its anti-hegemonic origins, turning it into a forum where energy security and arms sales trump moral consistency. Historical parallels abound: from the Bandung Conference’s idealism to the Bandung-era coups backed by Western powers, BRICS’ current struggles reflect how post-colonial states replicate colonial-era power dynamics when they prioritize elites over people. The solution lies not in forcing unity but in leveraging BRICS’ collective market power to disrupt conflict economies—whether through renewable energy transitions, sanctions on arms brokers, or civil society-led mediation. Yet this requires confronting the bloc’s own complicity in sustaining the very systems it claims to oppose, a paradox that only marginalized voices and future-oriented policies can resolve. The trickster’s lesson is clear: BRICS’ fragmentation is not weakness but a mirror, reflecting the absurdity of a world where states profit from war while claiming to seek peace.