On Saturday, July 9, 2022 at 10:26:16 PM UTC-4, ltlee1 wrote:
"When the acronym BRIC was first coined by Goldman Sachs chief economist Jim O'Neill back in 2001, ...
Prompted by larger geopolitical shifts, with the United States in relative decline and China challenging it as the would-be new global superpower and further propelled by the war in Ukraine, BRICS might finally be emerging as an organization that
genuinely speaks for the Global South.
Today the group represents a viable alternative to the Western-led global economic, security and political order that has been dominant since World War II, and virtually unchallenged since the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s.
...
Russia's invasion of Ukraine has turned out to be a critical wedge issue dividing the United States and its Western allies from almost all of the Global South, including the BRICS countries.
While the U.S. wants to isolate and punish Russia through the imposition of harsh economic sanctions and military assistance to Ukraine, long time neutral nations Finland and Sweden have belatedly applied for NATO membership, originally conceived to
counter the Soviet Union and now a bulwark against Russia.
Emerging economies, including all the BRICS members, have remained studiously neutral with regard to the Russia-Ukraine conflict and ambivalent about condemning the invasion outright or offering support for the Western-led sanctions.
What is more, U.S. attempts to squeeze Russia by eliminating trade in the ruble may paradoxically end up weakening the long standing hegemony of the dollar in the global financial and monetary system.
Indian officials have been discussing with their Russian counterparts the possibility of bilateral trade invoiced in rubles and rupees, a system that was used during Soviet times when neither economy had large dollar reserves. More recently, a major
Indian cement manufacturer purchased Russian coal and paid for it in yuan, a first for this type of transaction.
More broadly, countries attempting to get around U.S. and Western trade sanctions on Russia may increasingly resort to trading in non-Western currencies, most notably, the ruble itself and the yuan.
...
China, and to a lesser extent other major emerging economies such as India, Brazil and South Africa, have long aspired to a new world order, no longer underpinned by Western, especially U.S., economic and military hegemony. The Ukraine crisis might
just help to make this a reality."
https://asia.nikkei.com/Opinion/Ukraine-war-divides-Western-alliance-from-the-Global-South
The Ukraine war divides Western alliance from the Global South was clear since the UN GA vote.
What comes into graduate focus now is the division among European nations which could tear
Europe apart.
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/ukraine-could-tear-europe-apart%ef%bf%bc/
"Last month the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) released a detailed study of the split
between those focused on peace and on justice. The poll was conducted in May, when “[t]he public
debate was turning away from events on the battlefield and towards questions of how the conflict
will end, as well as its impact on people’s lives, on their countries, and on the EU. It was also a moment
when Europeans were becoming much more aware of the global economic and social consequences
of the war: high inflation, and energy and food crises.”
Early in the war European leaders postured heroically and dismissed the difficulties to come. No longer,
especially with sanctions appearing to be hurting the West more than Moscow. Over the long-term the
Russian economy is likely to suffer from limited access to semiconductor chips and other critical
technologies, as well as a youthful brain drain. However, that possibility offers scant comfort to Europeans
who could soon find themselves unemployed.
Indeed, noted ECFR, governments will be forced
"to balance the pursuit of European unity behind pressure on Moscow with opinions that diverge both
inside and among member states. The survey reveals a growing gap between the stated positions of many
European governments and the public mood in their countries. The big looming divide is between those
who want to end the war as quickly as possible and those who want to carry on fighting until Russia has
been defeated."
Dissent is growing, especially in western European states. For instance, more than a quarter of Italians and
roughly a fifth of French and Germans, as well as Romanians, believe responsibility for the war rests primarily
with Ukraine, the European Union, or America. When asked who is the biggest obstacle to peace, more than a
third of Italians, a quarter of French and Romanians, and a fifth of Germans say Ukraine, E.U., or U.S.
Although these numbers indicate that dissenters remain a distinct minority, their impact is increasing in the
continent’s largest and most influential nations. ...
Overall, the survey found 35 percent of respondents to be in the “peace camp,” 22 percent to be in the “justice camp,”
and 20 percent to be “swing voters,” who want justice but fear escalation, and thus could move either way.
Geographic divisions were significant. Italy’s numbers were 52, 16, and 8, respectively; Germany’s were 49, 19, and 14;
Romania’s were 42, 23, and 10; France’s were 41, 20, and 13. Smaller pluralities emphasized peace in Sweden, Spain,
Portugal, Finland, and even the United Kingdom. Of the ten countries polled, only Poland yielded a plurality, 41 percent,
in the justice camp, compared to 16 percent in the peace camp and 25 percent as swing voters."
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