Brics as a test of Europe’s unity

 

The center of the Old World, western Europe, looks like a distant peninsula from Kazan. Something like India or Korea. All it takes is a few spins of the globe on Google Earth, the digital globe, and the geopolitical perspective changes fundamentally. Europe lies on the outermost periphery of the Eurasian landmass.

In fact, Kazan, the capital of the Tatarstan region on the Volga, was the alternative center of the world for 48 hours. The heads of state and government of the larger emerging countries accepted Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invitation to the Brics Group summit: from Xi Jinping, Narendra Modi to Cyril Ramaphosa.

The group’s economic strength is not yet sufficient to provide an alternative currency against the dominance of the dollar. But simply downplaying the Brics countries – the acronym originally stood for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – as a dispersed club of dissatisfied people shows dangerous Western arrogance. Western Europe in particular lives in a bubble of imagined security, including Switzerland.

Power political mechanics of the 19th century

Of course, there are significant differences and also tangible conflicts between the states whose representatives traveled to Kazan: India is a democracy. Vietnam has secured itself against China with a strategic agreement with the USA. Although Turkey refuses to accept Western sanctions against Russia, it is a militarily reliable member of NATO.

Of course, there are significant differences and tangible conflicts between the states whose representatives traveled to Kazan. But the block also sends out integrating characters. In Kazan, the Chinese ruler shook hands with the Indian Prime Minister – for the first time in five years. The two countries had previously suddenly at least formally resolved their border dispute in the high mountains of Ladakh. Nevertheless, Beijing and Delhi remain competitors.

But the Brics countries do not claim to agree on all areas. The common interest is the balance of power; everything else remains rhetoric and staging. The group photo from Kazan looks like it is at a G-7 summit or the peace summit on Bürgenstock. The participants could also have taken part in the Congress of Vienna in 1814/15.

Historical analogies are often exhausted after the first thought, but what is exciting are the patterns that can be derived from the past – and transferred into the future. This claim drove the Greek historian Thucydides to write the history of the Peloponnesian War (431 to 404 BC): democratic Athens and authoritarian Sparta chafed at each other – primarily out of political arrogance.

Thucydides writes that observing this world war in antiquity would provide “a clear insight into what will happen in the future,” which could happen again “according to human nature in one way or another.” It is not history that repeats itself, but human behavior.

Kazan as Putin’s success – in Xi’s shadow

Because Russia and China are now ruled by autocrats again, the characters and calculations of Xi and Putin become relevant factors in the analysis. It is therefore no coincidence that the power politics mechanics of the Brics group are reminiscent of the coalitions of the 19th century. Changing alliances and contradictions among the great and middle powers were part of the nature of international relations until the end of the Second World War.

Putin in particular has cobbled together a worldview that idealizes the time before 1945. Alexander Dugin, the Russian president’s former historical-philosophical whisperer, refers in various places in his writings to the Holy Alliance, which was created in 1815 to protect the imperial monarchies from the revolutionary movements. The members – Austria-Hungary, Russia and Prussia – each pursued their own goals, but ensured a balance of power politics – usually at the expense of the weaker states.

The Allies of the Second World War wanted to do away with this and set a counterpoint with the idea of ​​a cooperative security order. The UN Charter tried to outlaw war as a continuation of power politics. But the West squandered the brief chance for a sustainable peace order that had opened up with the collapse of the Soviet Union. The double standards in the war on terror also cost the USA and its allies credibility in emerging countries.

Putin initiated the renaissance of power politics in February 2007 with a speech at the Munich Security Conference: “I am convinced that today we have reached a limit point where we should seriously think about the entire architecture of global security,” he said the hall and used Western self-criticism as a lever against the rules-based security order.

The demand for a “multipolar world order” that Putin put forward in Munich immediately turned out to be a concept for restoring the Russian sphere of influence. Just a few weeks later, Estonia was attacked – according to all the rules of hybrid warfare: with disinformation, subversion of the Russian-speaking population and cyber sabotage. Thanks to a courageous reaction by the then president, the Baltic NATO country was able to fend off Russian encroachment on its own sovereignty.

The West only really reacted when Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022. But only a minority of states worldwide have imposed sanctions against Russia. The Brics summit in Kazan proves that Putin could not be isolated internationally. Together with the Chinese ruler Xi, Putin celebrates his idea of ​​a multipolar world order, but now in his shadow.

In the vacuum before the American elections

China and Russia package their power political ambitions in the empty words of Western diplomacy. This became clear on Wednesday when Xi presented the Chinese-Brazilian peace plan for Ukraine in Kazan: “Three principles must be strictly respected: no expansion of the battlefield, no escalation of fighting and no provocations from either side.”

Ukraine’s sovereignty and the UN Charter are not mentioned at all, but Xi’s demands sound as if they are supported by international law. Instead of calling on Moscow to withdraw from the occupied territories, a dictated peace is being prepared. In this way, terms are reinterpreted in terms of power politics – similar to how Putin sold the multipolar world order as democratic in Munich.

The visit of UN Secretary General António Guterres to Kazan was all the more problematic. It was not enough that he thereby legitimized a forum for Chinese-Russian power politics. With his handshake with Putin, who has been declared a war criminal by the International Criminal Court, Guterres immediately discredited the UN as a whole, which, however, fits into the general picture with regard to the Middle East.

In the vacuum before the American elections on November 5, the summit has created a possible basis for a geopolitical convulsion. Depending on the outcome of the US elections, Ukraine could come under pressure to agree to a ceasefire. That is why Kiev is currently trying to secure the peace formula, which is based on the UN Charter, as broadly as possible – and at the same time make offers for a deal between strong men.

The Brics Group’s self-confidence as a warning

The Brics states are not a new version of the Holy Alliance, but they fit well with the revisionist and imperial goals of the Eurasian autocracies. Xi sees the move as one of many ways to challenge the US as a superpower. Putin, on the other hand, is creating a basis through which he can divide the EU and NATO. If Turkish President Erdogan can travel to Kazan, why can’t Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban?

On the anniversary of the Hungarian uprising against the communist regime, Orban called for “resistance against the EU”. Together with the Austrian election winner Herbert Kickl and other nationalists, he founded the “Patriots for Europe” platform, which aims to divide Europe. The connecting points regarding the “multipolar world order” in the sense of the Kremlin are obvious.

The EU could be challenged like never before. A fragmentation of Europe into blocs of states with different interests, which are played off against each other by the Kremlin and Beijing, is no longer ruled out. This would not only put Europe on the periphery as seen from Kazan, but also politically and later economically.

If the USA were to disappear as a partner and the transatlantic bridge were to disappear, the continent would be largely at the mercy of the Eurasian autocracies. If Ukrainian resistance against Russia were to collapse, the majority of European states would lack the defensive capability to defend themselves against a military attack.

This forces the EU to also see itself as a security policy unit. Despite all the differences, the European states must agree on the fundamental values, but give each other enough freedom of action to take care of special cases. The self-confidence of the Brics states should be a warning to Europe.