BRICS is challenging the US-led order but can’t replace it yet

One of the biggest geopolitical stories of the 21st century is the emergence of a broad coalition of countries determined to dilute the West’s monopoly on global governance.

That coalition is informally known as BRICS, an acronym that stands for the grouping’s five original members: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Originally coined “BRIC” as a term for an international investment category, the actual nations of BRICS held their first summit using the modified name in 2011.

Since 2024, BRICS has expanded into an 11-member grouping that includes states as diverse as Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Ethiopia and Iran.

To many Americans, BRICS is little more than an anti-Western talking shop. But it is a mistake to dismiss a coalition that represents nearly half of humanity (the Group of Seven accounts for less than 10 percent), a growing share of global output, and an increasingly influential voice of the Global South. Whereas the G7 share of the world economy has steadily declined since the 1990s, BRICS’s share continues to rise.

Its growing influence reflects a profound reality: much of the non-Western world wants greater strategic autonomy and deeper economic cooperation beyond Western-led frameworks.

So the real question is not whether BRICS matters, but whether it can catalyze the development of a genuine alternative to the current U.S.-led world order. Its summit in New Delhi last weekend offered an illuminating answer.

The summit concluded with a 140-point New Delhi Declaration. Despite deep divisions, India brokered consensus among rivals by grounding the text in established U.N. legal frameworks and other standard multilateral principles.

But the summit also underscored a central paradox: BRICS members agree that the international system is unfair because it does not reflect today’s distribution of economic and political power. Yet they disagree deeply about what should........

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