Friday, August 25, 2023

Expansion of BRICS needs a new name

The BRICS group of countries has just agreed in principle to expand, with the addition of another six countries.

The BRIC bloc was originally formed informally from what you might call newly-developed countries - Brazil, Russia, India and China - as a loose alliance of fast-growing states opposed to American hegemony in world economics and trade. With the addition of South Africa in 2010 - hence the current acronym BRICS - the grouping became a more formal and cohesive geopolitical bloc, setting itself up as a kind of rival to the G7 block of leading advanced economies, and expressing ambitions towards a joint currency and payment system, bank, contingency reserve system, etc. 

It insists it is not an anti-Western organization, but it absolutely is, and it is certainly openly hostile to Western-led sanctions, such as those currently being levied against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. It is essentially a motley group of largely authoritarian countries, most with close ties to Russia and/or China.

Now, though, BRICS has allowed in a bunch of other maverick, authoritarian countries of suspect morals, motivations and ambitions: Iran, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, Argentina, United Arab Emirates and Egypt. Which means that they might have to change the name of the bloc (unless they want to actively maintain a distinction between the top-level founding members and other, inferior, Johnny-come-latelies). Further expansions may follow in the future, it is hinted, as at least 20 have applied for membership, and as many as 40 have expressed some level of interest.

Incorporating I, S, E, A, U and E into BRICS might be a challenge (too many vowels, for one thing). So, they may have to resort to a completely new descriptive name. The new members do not become official until January 2024, so they have a while to think about it. Can I throw one or two ideas into the ring? Maybe Mavericks Anonymous? The Pariahs? The Undesirable Nations? The Basket of Deplorables?

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