Is BRICS Losing Its Mojo?

When the low-key grouping of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa announced a major expansion at a 2023 summit in Johannesburg, the wealthy West finally sat up and took notice. By the time the dust had settled two years later, and 16 years on from its founding, BRICS counted 10 core members (up from five), with Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates as new entrants. A lower tier of 10 “partner countries” was also announced. When the low-key grouping of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa announced a major expansion at a 2023 summit in Johannesburg, the wealthy West finally sat up and took notice. By the time the dust had settled two years later, and 16 years on from its founding, BRICS counted 10 core members (up from five), with Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates as new entrants. A lower tier of 10 “partner countries” was also announced. But as leaders fly into New Delhi for its 18th annual summit on Sept. 12, an undercurrent of anxiety is in the air. What seemed like a triumphant coming-out of the global south—from which a vast majority of BRICS states are drawn—is starting to feel a little bit like a dysfunctional family getting together for Christmas (or Diwali). Host India has worked hard on its sumptuous agenda of “Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability.” But, given the indigestion of its rapid expansion and its modest impact on the ground, the overarching question of where BRICS goes next looms. BRICS’s troubles began almost immediately after the expansion was initiated. Most unexpectedly, they emerged from its African contingent. New members Egypt and Ethiopia refused to endorse South Africa as a member of a reformed U.N. Security Council (UNSC), despite the two states apparently having made a prior commitment to do so. In September 2024, a foreign ministers’ meeting failed to issue a joint statement, the first time this had ever happened for BRICS. The failure was repeated in the follow-on meeting in April 2025. (Since its 2011 summit, BRICS declarations have routinely included mention of South Africa, as well as Brazil and India, in connection with the group’s advocacy for U.N. reform.) Ultimately, the BRICS summit declaration later that year in Rio dropped any reference to South Africa, mentioning only Brazil and India in the paragraph on UNSC reform. The outbreak of serious warfare between the United States, Israel, and Iran in early 2026—a war that quickly embroiled the UAE—further complicated matters. The previous year, Brazil had succeeded in shepherding a joint statement when the conflict was still contained. But that fragile consensus didn’t last long as the war resumed and expanded. The BRICS foreign ministers meeting in May 2026 again failed to issue a joint statement. Acrimonious exchanges between Iran and the UAE roiled the meeting of national security advisors which followed. Iran insisted that BRICS’s condemnations of terrorism—a staple since the grouping’s early years—also include what it called “state terrorism,” a reference to Tehran’s perceptions of the United States and Israel. Most other members were reluctant to go that far. Ultimately, India issued a chair’s statement and a press release summarizing its perceptions of the main discussions in the two meetings. Major-power competition had rocked the BRICS boat right from the beginning of India’s current chairing. In January 2026, South Africa conducted a naval drill with China, Iran, and Russia. Pretoria showcased it as a BRICS exercise, and all BRICS member states were invited. The UAE sent a corvette but decided to keep it docked. Brazil, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Indonesia restricted their participation to being observers. And New Delhi pointedly stayed away, characterizing the exercise as “entirely a South African initiative” and “not a regular or institutionalized BRICS activity.” Iran’s presence drew sharp criticism from Washington. Pretoria ordered the Iranians excluded, but Tehran’s ships reportedly did not leave. Ultimately, South Africa ended up investigating its own navy for apparently violating the orders of its president. It was not BRICS’s finest hour. Recent flaps notwithstanding, it would be a mistake to call BRICS a failure. In less than two decades, BRICS has succeeded in creating the first truly transcontinental club outside the wealthy West. It now includes all regions of the global south and has overtaken the G-7 in terms of economic output. Development finance is among its clearest success stories. The New Development Bank has been functioning for a decade now with high credit ratings. Thickening interactions between BRICS states are also helping forge better policy alignment across a range of issues important to the global south. More recently, though, an expanding BRICS is meeting a more conflictual world. It was easier to build consensus on conflicts involving non-BRICS countries—for example, Syria and Afghanistan. Even tackling the thorny issue of Ukraine was manageable, as practically all global south countries backed diplomacy and saw the conflict as having more complex drivers than most Western states did. But as the fires of war are spreading, more BRICS states are finding themselves picking a side. Taking a common position becomes extremely challenging under such circumstances. So, could BRICS find a way to stay away from the security agenda altogether? After all, the club’s origins lie squarely in the economic and financial domain. Its four original members, taking their cues from a paper by Goldman Sachs’s head of global economics research, started meeting in 2006 at the foreign minister level as BRIC. But even during its first leaders’ summit in 2009, BRIC stressed security-oriented themes: a multipolar global order; collective security and UNSC reform; opposition to terrorism. These three themes have appeared consistently in the 16 summit declarations since. And the security agenda has only expanded. The 2011 summit declaration in China contained a paragraph on NATO’s Libya intervention; the Arab-Israeli conflict, Syria, and Afghanistan made it to the 2012 New Delhi summit; and stand-alone meetings of national security advisors were launched in 2013. New research aggregating data across all its summits indicates that, though economic development is the top area of focus for BRICS, geopolitical and security issues come a close second. It is simply too late to de-securitize the BRICS agenda. It is also impractical in our times when everything seems to be securitized. BRICS has experienced two positive inflection points since its coming out in 2009. The first was the 2012-14 period, when an innovative proposal from India and hard work by Brazil and others leading up to the 2014 summit led to the birth of the New Development Bank. The second wind was the membership expansion launched at the 2023 summit in South Africa, detailed previously. To avert paralysis and stay relevant in the contentious world of the foreseeable future, BRICS needs a third wind. Going forward, remaining true to its reformist roots and resisting the temptations of radicalism ought to be a key guiding principle for BRICS. Also crucial is not losing sight of delivery: real impact on the lives of real people in the global south. This means, first and foremost, a major scale-up of developmental goods. And the security agenda needs a scale-down, too. There is no need to take a position on every single raging war, especially if the position taken is unlikely to lead to much action. Focusing on issues with the deepest roots and maximum buy-in within BRICS can, however, be productive. For example, BRICS can have a concrete impact on working together to counter nonstate violence—specifically, terrorism, piracy, and organized crime. These challenges are serious and only multiplying. Reforming the UNSC, though an ambitious and long-haul task, must also be relentlessly pushed. BRICS also quietly serves as a forum in which bilateral tensions can be eased—for example, the 2024 Kazan summit served as an important site for India and China to calm tensions that had spiked with their 2020 border clash. In less than two decades, BRICS’s leaders have managed to build a transcontinental coalition that has only grown, with thickening interactions, and a few success stories. Its impact is still modest, but the survival and growth story is itself impressive in an international system still dominated by the West. Over time, and if it avoids security-related land mines, a reformist BRICS will have increased developmental impacts and helped plug the glaring deficits in the current international system. With some luck, BRICS could even help stabilize vulnerable regions and build greater resilience to systemic shocks.