Russia

Brazil and Russia rank first and second globally by the amount of renewable freshwater resources. Despite the significant challenges to municipal water use and water quality for the population, even in the timespan of 30 years these countries will be most protected from water stress. At the same time, China and India - countries with vast water resources, meet growing water challenges being the first and second in terms of world population and the world’s first and third economy according to PPP with prospects for further growth.

• Anastasia Likhacheva
• November 2019
• Strategic Analysis

This article examines the preconditions and reasons for interaction between BRICS countries in the fields of science, research and university education. It analyzes the particular ways in which the member countries develop and coordinate their positions in these areas. It also reviews and evaluates the practical experience gained from cooperating on scientific and technological research and innovation (STRI), and the functioning of the BRICS Network University, and considers the prospects for further joint work in these areas.

• Igor Kovalev , Alina Shcherbakova
• November 2019
• Strategic Analysis

The picture of the post-crisis world is shaped by the paradigm shifts about the sustainability of national development as a globally integrated co-development and as a necessary condition for national security and defence. Each state faces the steep task of developing new effective foreign economic policy, replacing the former export-oriented and protectionist import-substituting strategies. Such policy changes primarily concern the BRICS countries, including Russia and its place/role in expanding international trade in intermediate goods and services.

• Ninel Seniuk
• November 2019
• Strategic Analysis

The BRICS group has gone a long way from being the simple acronym to becoming global political player. While it remains undecided whether the BRICS will evolve into a comprehensive, consolidated alliance in global politics, the trend towards increased collaboration and institutionalization now indicates that this may well be feasible. The article examines the relationship between the European Union and BRICS and seeks to understand whether the EU and BRICS are more likely partners or rivals.

• Elena Maslova , Mark Entin
• November 2019
• Strategic Analysis

The emergence of BRICS is a reflection of the economic power shift from the north to the south. BRICS cooperation is driven by their shared identity as emerging economies. BRICS will play a bigger role in reshaping the world economic order through reform of the existing international institutions and within the framework of G20. It is in no way aimed at toppling the existing world order or forming an anti-West bloc.

• Li Li
• November 2019
• Strategic Analysis

The article explores America’s evolving policy towards BRICS in the context of the Trump administration’s new ‘America First’ global strategy. Even though the BRICS grouping has not become an anti-systemic or anti-liberal force, its attempts to form an alternative centre of global power has prompted the US to manage multipolarity. The Trump administration has continued America’s previous policies of hedging potential BRICS consolidation and enhancing its regional engagement in the era of sovereignty revivalism and deglobalisation.

• Vitaly Kozyrev
• November 2019
• Strategic Analysis

This article builds on extensive debates on the role of BRICS in world order. But instead of focusing on BRICS’ impact on the world order, the article takes a different methodological approach. It traces how much the evolution of BRICS’ rational was prompted by changes of the international system and Russia’s and China’s grand strategies. The key finding is that the BRICS does not determine major world developments, but acclimatizes to the evolving international situation.

• Igor Denisov , Andrei Kazantsev , Fyodor Lukyanov , Ivan Safranchuk
• November 2019
• Strategic Analysis

Given complexities currently underpinning multipolar realities of the international system, it seems that a pluralist internationalism is becoming a strategic consideration for a post-Western world order. This warrants new agendas for cooperation. Based on the latter this analysis examines to what extent the BRICS can articulate such a new agenda based on a South African-informed perspective. This involves exploring the basis of a BRICS-African agenda competing with the geo-political interests of sub-groupings such as the SCO, RIC, and the EAEU.

• Francis A. Kornegay , Sanusha Naidu
• November 2019
• Strategic Analysis

The BRICS are at a turbulent crossroads as renewed great power competition intersects with countervailing tendencies in the emerging multipolar arena. Their success depends avoiding the external costs and domestic pathologies generated by great power friction. Emerging multipolarity provides opportunities for manoeuvre, but only if outsized China accommodates the other BRICS as it competes against the United States. The BRICS’ strongest common aversion concerns American hegemony and its weaponization of finance.

• Cynthia Roberts
• November 2019
• Strategic Analysis

Belarus has successfully pursued a multi-vector foreign policy and is seeking to play a significant role to strengthen peace and stability in the region.

• Manabhanjan Meher
• April 04, 2019
• Backgrounder