ralfy

There are no benefits in joining BRICS. Instead, there are benefits in employing economic policies that characterize BRICS and emerging markets of the Global South, which are variations of the East Asian Miracle that was first started by Japan, then promoted by South Korea and Taiwan, and later Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and others, and finally China and Vietnam. That is, infrastructure development needed for mechanized agriculture, mining, and/or manufacturing, heavy coordination between private and public sectors and led by a government that promotes variations of nationalist economics, protection of key industries that have no competition (like utilities) and that have the possibility of impressive development and growth, and export orientation to make industrial sectors grow. What about the U.S.? As the Council of Foreign Relations: https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/dollar-worlds-reserve-currency and even Stoltenberg of NATO: https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/opinions_222258.htm implicitly reveal is that the power of the U.S. and that unipolar global economy lies in the use of the U.S. dollar as a global reserve currency. For that to be maintained, many countries have to be economically weak and thus dependent on the U.S. The U.S. ensures this through a combination of neoliberalism, such as structural adjustment policies via the IMF-WB that encourage client nations to promote free markets, and the military industrial complex, or collusion between rich-controlled industries and the military (with Congress) to use arms sales, military deals, etc., to ensure "freedom and democracy" for recipient countries, or neoconservatism. These go against the so-called model mentioned earlier, which is said to be a combination of 19th-century Prussian state policies and European mercantilism. Such a model leads to a multipolar economy where various currencies are used, if not something like variations of special drawing rights, so that no single country can dominate it by being able to have a global reserve currency. Besides, the latter leads to a Triffin dilemma, where one's exports become too expensive for many and importing becomes cheaper, leading eventually to trade deficits and the need to borrow continuously to meet increasing spending. That's what happened to the U.S., as it began to experience trade deficits starting in the mid-1970s and was able to compensate for that and increased spending by financial deregulation starting in the early 1980s, which in turn lead to increasing debt.

BRICS refers to Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. It started as BRIC, a term coined by an economist and used by Goldman Sachs over twenty years ago to refer to countries that would become the economic powers of the future. Later, South Africa was included, and other terms were coined to refer to various configurations, like CIVETS (Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam, etc.), EAGLES (Emerging and Growing-Leading Economies), MINT (Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria, Turkey), and Next Eleven (Bangladesh, the Philippines, Indonesia, Iran, Pakistan, etc.). They are mostly part of the Global South, which is all countries except those in North America, Europe, and Israel, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand. The Global South, which includes Ukraine, is growing considerably and will soon take over the global economy because it has large numbers of young people who are eager workers and consumers: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-22956470 A recent example is VIP, or Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines, which have some of the highest economic growth rates and will eventually become among the premier investment sites even for the aging populations of the Global North. The main leader is China, which has been experiencing unprecedented growth, i.e., an average growth rate of 7 pct per annum for more than 40 years, and within two decades lifted over 800 million of its people out of poverty. The main tactics employed by these countries is the East Asian Miracle, which was started by Japan and consists of combinations of coordination between public and private sectors, export orientation, heavy infrastructure development needed for manufacturing, mechanized agriculture, and mining, and essentially authoritarian forms of government, and is based on, interestingly enough, nineteenth-century Prussian state policies and three centuries of European mercantilism. BRICS has lately become an organization and now includes Saudi Arabia, which has been trading with Russia and China without using the dollar. The result is a growing multipolar global economy, with lots of bilateral trade and economic blocs outside the influence of the U.S. dollar, G-7, and even the IMF and WB. Many of them grew faster because they refused to give in to policies like IMF-WB structural adjustment, which would have forced them to open up their markets to exploitation by the West. This increasing prosperity by most countries is a major threat to the U.S., which relies heavily on the use of the dollar as a global reserve currency (which is why, for example, it made deals with Saudi Arabia and OPEC to price oil in dollars and to invest profits in Wall Street in exchange for military support). The only way for that reserve currency to be maintained is for most of these countries to be economically weak and thus rely on the U.S. for help.

Keep in mind that the U.S. and the West are reliant on China and others, not only for ammo but even for various needs, like fossil fuels and minerals. https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/03/16/us-military-china-minerals-supply-chain/ https://www.voanews.com/a/putin-profits-off-us-and-european-reliance-on-russian-nuclear-fuel-/7220368.html https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-natural-gas-european-union-dependence-ukraine-war/32754244.html It's only later that they called for bans, but with a lot of concern because their manufacturing base is not prepared to go on a war footing, and they lack oil and minerals to maintain middle class lifestyles. (There's one report which even shows that the U.S. is wholly unprepared against China because its industrial base is shot.) Meanwhile, many don't want to serve in the military, if not unfit to serve: https://www.euronews.com/2023/09/01/conscription-is-seeing-a-revival-across-europe-is-that-a-good-thing https://www.military.com/daily-news/2022/09/28/new-pentagon-study-shows-77-of-young-americans-are-ineligible-military-service.html One expert even pointed out that most U.S. youth are not even fit for many careers, and the main reasons involve drugs, alcoholism, criminal records, unwanted pregnancies, poor physical or mental health, obesity, and low test scores. Lastly, there has been growing distrust of the West by the Global South, as seen in moves away from the petrodollar and increasing bilateral trade, and what appears to be the emergence of a multipolar global economy.

https://www.newsweek.com/nato-ammunition-stoltenberg-ukraine-bullets-1863220