{"id":18826,"date":"2012-04-30T12:00:16","date_gmt":"2012-04-30T11:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=18826"},"modified":"2012-04-27T01:07:32","modified_gmt":"2012-04-27T00:07:32","slug":"a-history-of-the-world-bric-by-bric","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2012\/04\/a-history-of-the-world-bric-by-bric\/","title":{"rendered":"A History of the World, BRIC by BRIC"},"content":{"rendered":"

Neoliberal Dragons, Eurasian Wet Dreams, and Robocop Fantasies<\/em><\/p>\n

Goldman Sachs — via economist Jim O\u2019Neill — invented the concept of a rising new bloc on the planet: BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa). Some cynics couldn\u2019t help calling it the \u201cBloody Ridiculous Investment Concept.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not really. Goldman now expects<\/a> the BRICS countries to account for almost 40% of global gross domestic product (GDP) by 2050, and to include four of the world\u2019s top five economies.<\/p>\n

Soon, in fact, that acronym may have to expand to include Turkey, Indonesia, South Korea and, yes, nuclear Iran: BRIIICTSS? \u00a0Despite its well-known problems as a nation under economic siege<\/a>, Iran is also motoring along as part of the N-11, yet another distilled concept.\u00a0 (It stands for the next 11 emerging economies.)<\/p>\n

The multitrillion-dollar global question remains: Is the emergence of BRICS a signal that we have truly entered a new multipolar world?<\/p>\n

Yale\u2019s canny historian Paul Kennedy<\/a> (of \u201cimperial overstretch\u201d fame) is convinced<\/a> that we either are about to cross or have already crossed a \u201chistorical watershed\u201d taking us far beyond the post-Cold War unipolar world of \u201cthe sole superpower.\u201d There are, argues Kennedy, four main reasons for that: the slow erosion of the U.S. dollar (formerly 85% of global reserves, now less than 60%), the \u201cparalysis of the European project,\u201d Asia rising (the end of 500 years of Western hegemony), and the decrepitude of the United Nations.<\/p>\n

The Group of Eight<\/a> (G-8) is already increasingly irrelevant. The G-20, which includes the BRICS, might, however, prove to be the real thing. But there\u2019s much to be done to cross that watershed rather than simply be swept over it willy-nilly: the reform of the U.N. Security Council, and above all, the reform of the Bretton Woods system, especially those two crucial institutions, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, willy-nilly may prove the way of the world.\u00a0 After all, as emerging superstars, the BRICS have a ton of problems. \u00a0True, in only the last seven years Brazil has added<\/a> 40 million people as middle-class consumers; by 2016, it will have invested another $900 billion — more than a third of its GDP — in energy and infrastructure; and it\u2019s not as exposed as some BRICS members to the imponderables of world trade, since its exports are only 11% of GDP, even less than the U.S.<\/p>\n

Still, the key problem remains the same: lack of good management, not to mention a swamp of corruption. Brazil\u2019s brazen new monied class is turning out to be no less corrupt than the old, arrogant, comprador elites that used to run the country.<\/p>\n

In India, the choice seems to be between manageable and unmanageable chaos. The corruption of the country\u2019s political elite would make Shiva proud. Abuse of state power, nepotistic control of contracts related to infrastructure, the looting of mineral resources, real estate property scandals — they\u2019ve got it all, even if India is not a Hindu Pakistan. Not yet anyway.<\/p>\n

Since 1991, \u201creform\u201d in India has meant only one thing: unbridled commerce and getting the state out of the economy. Not surprisingly then, nothing is being done to reform public institutions, which are a scandal in themselves. Efficient public administration? Don\u2019t even think about it. In a nutshell, India is a chaotic economic dynamo and yet, in some sense, not even an emerging power, not to speak of a superpower.<\/p>\n

Russia, too, is still trying to find the magic mix, including a competent state policy to exploit the country\u2019s bounteous natural resources, extraordinary space, and impressive social talent. \u00a0It must modernize fast as, apart from Moscow and St. Petersburg, relative social backwardness prevails. Its leaders remain uneasy about neighboring China (aware that any Sino-Russian alliance would leave Russia as a distinctly junior partner).\u00a0 They are distrustful of Washington, anxious over the depopulation of their eastern territories, and worried about the cultural and religious alienation of their Muslim population.<\/p>\n

Then again the Putinator is back<\/a> as president with his magic formula for modernization: a strategic German-Russian partnership that will benefit the power elite\/business oligarchy, but not necessarily the majority of Russians.<\/p>\n

Dead in the Woods<\/strong><\/p>\n

The post-World War II Bretton Woods system is now officially dead, totally illegitimate, but what are the BRICS planning to do about it?<\/p>\n

At their summit in New Delhi in late March, they pushed for the creation of a BRICS development bank<\/a> that could invest in infrastructure and provide them with back-up credit for whatever financial crises lie down the road. The BRICS know perfectly well that Washington and the European Union (EU) will never relinquish control of the IMF and the World Bank. Nonetheless, trade among these countries will reach an impressive $500 billion by 2015, mostly in their own currencies.<\/p>\n

However, BRICS cohesion, to the extent it exists, centers mostly around shared frustration with the Masters of the Universe-style financial speculation that nearly sent the global economy off a cliff in 2008. True, the BRICS crew also has a notable convergence of policy and opinion when it comes to embattled Iran, an Arab Sprung Middle East, and Northern Africa. Still, for the moment the key problem they face is this: they don’t have an ideological or institutional alternative to neo-liberalism and the lordship of global finance.<\/p>\n

As Vijay Prashad has noted, the Global North has done everything to prevent<\/a> any serious discussion of how to reform the global financial casino. No wonder the head of the G-77 group of developing nations (now G-132, in fact), Thai ambassador Pisnau Chanvitan, has warned<\/a> of \u201cbehavior that seems to indicate a desire for the dawn of a new neocolonialism.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, things happen anyway, helter-skelter.\u00a0 China, for instance, continues to informally advance the yuan as a globalizing, if not global, currency. It\u2019s already trading in yuan with Russia and Australia, not to mention across Latin America and in the Middle East. Increasingly, the BRICS are betting on the yuan as their monetary alternative to a devalued U.S. dollar.<\/p>\n

Japan is using both yen and yuan in its bilateral trade with its huge Asian neighbor. The fact is that there\u2019s already an unacknowledged Asian free-trade zone in the making, with China, Japan, and South Korea on board.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s ahead, even if it includes a BRICS-bright future, will undoubtedly be very messy<\/a>.\u00a0 Just about anything is possible (verging on likely), from another Great Recession in the U.S. to European stagnation or even the collapse of the eurozone, to a BRICS-wide slowdown, a tempest in the currency markets, the collapse of financial institutions, and a global crash.<\/p>\n

And talk about messy, who could forget what Dick Cheney said<\/a>, while still Halliburton\u2019s CEO, at the Institute of Petroleum in London in 1999: \u201cThe Middle East, with two-thirds of the world’s oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies.\u201d No wonder when, as vice president, he came to power in 2001, his first order of business was to \u201cliberate\u201d Iraq\u2019s oil. Of course, who doesn\u2019t remember how that ended?<\/p>\n

Now (different administration but same line of work), it\u2019s an oil-embargo-cum-economic-war on Iran. The leadership in Beijing sees Washington\u2019s whole Iran psychodrama as a regime-change plot, pure and simple, having nothing to do with nuclear weapons. Then again, the winner so far in the Iran imbroglio is China. With Iran\u2019s banking system in crisis, and the U.S. embargo playing havoc with that country\u2019s economy, Beijing can essentially dictate its terms for buying Iranian oil.<\/p>\n

The Chinese are expanding Iran\u2019s fleet of oil tankers, a deal worth more than $1 billion, and that other BRICS giant, India, is now purchasing even more Iranian oil than China. Yet Washington won\u2019t apply its sanctions to BRICS members because these days, economically speaking, the U.S. needs them more than they need the U.S.<\/p>\n

The World Through Chinese Eyes<\/strong><\/p>\n

Which brings us to the dragon in the room: China.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the ultimate Chinese obsession? Stability, stability, stability.<\/p>\n

The usual self-description of the system there as\u00a0\u201csocialism with Chinese characteristics\u201d is, of course, as mythical as a gorgon. In reality, think hardcore neoliberalism with Chinese characteristics led by men who have every intention of saving global capitalism<\/a>.<\/p>\n

At the moment, China is smack in the middle of a tectonic, structural shift from an export\/investment model to a services\/consumer-led model. In terms of its explosive economic growth, the last decades have been almost unimaginable to most Chinese (and the rest of the world), but according to the\u00a0Financial Times<\/em>, they have also left the country\u2019s richest 1% controlling 40%-60% of total household wealth. How to find a way to overcome such staggering collateral damage? How to make a system with tremendous inbuilt problems function for 1.3 billion people?<\/p>\n

Enter \u201cstability-mania.\u201d Back in 2007, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao was warning that the Chinese economy could become \u201cunstable, unbalanced, uncoordinated, and unsustainable.\u201d These were the famous \u201cFour Uns<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today, the collective leadership, including the next Prime Minister, Li Leqiang, has gone a nervous step further, purging \u201cunstable\u201d from the Party\u2019s lexicon.\u00a0 For all practical purposes, the next phase in the country\u2019s development is already upon us.<\/p>\n

It will be quite something to watch in the years to come.<\/p>\n

How will the nominally \u201ccommunist\u201d princelings — the sons and daughters of top revolutionary Party leaders, all immensely wealthy, thanks, in part, to their cozy arrangements with Western corporations, plus the bribes, the alliances with gangsters, all those \u201cconcessions\u201d to the highest bidder, and the whole Western-linked crony-capitalist oligarchy — lead China beyond the \u201cFour Modernizations<\/a>\u201d? Especially with all that fabulous wealth to loot.<\/p>\n

The Obama administration, expressing its own anxiety, has responded<\/a> to the clear emergence of China as a power to be reckoned with via a \u201cstrategic pivot<\/a>\u201d — from its disastrous wars in the Greater Middle East to Asia.\u00a0 The Pentagon likes to call this \u201crebalancing\u201d (though things are anything but rebalanced or over for the U.S. in the Middle East).<\/p>\n

Before 9\/11, the Bush administration had been focused on China as its future global enemy number one.\u00a0 Then 9\/11 redirected it to what the Pentagon called \u201cthe arc of instability,\u201d the oil heartlands of the planet extending from the Middle East through Central Asia.\u00a0 Given Washington\u2019s distraction, Beijing calculated that it might enjoy a window of roughly two decades in which the pressure would be largely off.\u00a0 In those years, it could focus on a breakneck version of internal development, while the U.S. was squandering mountains of money on its nonsensical \u201cGlobal War on Terror.\u201d<\/p>\n

Twelve years later, that window is being slammed shut as from India, Australia, and the Philippines to South Korea and Japan, the U.S. declares itself back in the hegemony business in Asia.\u00a0Doubts that this was the new American path were dispelled by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton\u2019s November 2011 manifesto in Foreign Policy<\/em> magazine, none too subtly labeled \u201cAmerica\u2019s Pacific Century<\/a>.\u201d (And she was talking about this century, not the last one!)<\/p>\n

The American mantra is always the same: \u201cAmerican security,\u201d whose definition is: whatever happens on the planet.\u00a0 Whether in the oil-rich Persian Gulf where Washington \u201chelps\u201d allies Israel and Saudi Arabia because they feel threatened by Iran, or Asia where similar help is offered to a growing corps of countries that are said to feel threatened by China, it\u2019s always in the name of U.S. security. In either case, in just about any case, that\u2019s what trumps all else.<\/p>\n

As a result, if there is a 33-year Wall of Mistrust between the U.S. and Iran, there is a new, growing Great Wall of Mistrust between the U.S. and China.\u00a0 Recently, Wang Jisi, Dean of the School of International Studies at Peking University and a top Chinese strategic analyst, offered the Beijing leadership\u2019s perspective on that \u201cPacific Century\u201d in an influential paper<\/a> he coauthored.<\/p>\n

China, he and his coauthor write, now expects to be treated as a first-class power.\u00a0 After all, it \u201csuccessfully weathered… the 1997-98 global financial crisis,\u201d caused, in Beijing\u2019s eyes, by \u201cdeep deficiencies in the U.S. economy and politics.\u00a0China has surpassed Japan as the world\u2019s second largest economy and seems to be the number two in world politics, as well… Chinese leaders do not credit these successes to the United States or to the U.S.-led world order.\u201d<\/p>\n

The U.S., Wang adds, \u201cis seen in China generally as a declining power over the long run\u2026 It is now a question of how many years, rather than how many decades, before China replaces the United States as the largest economy in the world\u2026 part of an emerging new structure.\u201d\u00a0 (Think: BRICS.)<\/p>\n

In sum, as Wang and his coauthor portray it, influential Chinese see their country\u2019s development model providing \u201can alternative to Western democracy and experiences for other developing countries to learn from, while many developing countries that have introduced Western values and political systems are experiencing disorder and chaos.\u201d<\/p>\n

Put it all in a nutshell and you have a Chinese vision of the world in which a fading U.S. still yearns for global hegemony and remains powerful enough to block emerging powers — China and the other BRICS — from their twenty-first century destiny.<\/p>\n

Dr. Zbig\u2019s Eurasian Wet Dream<\/strong><\/p>\n

Now, how does the U.S. political elite see that same world? Virtually no one is better qualified to handle that subject than former national security adviser, BTC pipeline<\/a> facilitator, and briefly Obama ghost adviser, Dr. Zbigniew (\u201cZbig\u201d) Brzezinski.\u00a0 And he doesn\u2019t hesitate to do so in his latest book, Strategic Vision: America and the Crisis of Global Power<\/em>.<\/p>\n

If the Chinese have their strategic eyes on those other BRICS nations, Dr. Zbig remains stuck on the Old World, newly configured.\u00a0 He is now arguing that, for the U.S. to maintain some form of global hegemony, it must bet on an \u201cexpanded West.\u201d\u00a0 That would mean strengthening the Europeans (especially in energy terms), while embracing Turkey, which he imagines as a template for new Arab democracies, and engaging Russia, politically and economically, in a \u201cstrategically sober and prudent fashion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Turkey, by the way, is no such template because, despite the Arab Spring, for the foreseeable future, there are no new Arab democracies. Still, Zbig believes that Turkey can help Europe, and so the U.S., in far more practical ways to solve certain global energy problems by facilitating its \u201cunimpeded access across the Caspian Sea to Central Asia\u2019s oil and gas.\u201d<\/p>\n

Under the present circumstances, however, this, too, remains something of a fantasy.\u00a0 After all, Turkey can only become a key transit country in the great energy game on the Eurasian chessboard I\u2019ve long labeled<\/a> Pipelineistan if the Europeans get their act together.\u00a0 They would have to convince the energy-rich, autocratic \u201crepublic\u201d of Turkmenistan<\/a> to ignore its powerful Russian neighbor and sell them all the natural gas they need.\u00a0 And then there\u2019s that other energy matter that looks unlikely at the moment: Washington and Brussels would have to ditch counterproductive sanctions and embargos against Iran<\/a> (and the war games that go with them) and start doing serious business with that country.<\/p>\n

Dr. Zbig nonetheless proposes the notion of a two-speed Europe as the key to future American power on the planet.\u00a0 Think of it as an upbeat version of a scenario in which the present Eurozone semi-collapses.\u00a0 He would maintain the leading role of the inept bureaucratic fat cats in Brussels now running the EU, and support another \u201cEurope\u201d (mostly the southern \u201cClub Med\u201d countries) outside the euro, with nominally free movement of people and goods between the two. His bet — and in this he reflects a key strand of Washington thinking — is that a two-speed Europe, a Eurasian Big Mac, still joined at the hip to America, could be a globally critical player for the rest of the twenty-first century.<\/p>\n

And then, of course, Dr. Zbig displays all his Cold Warrior colors, extolling an American future \u201cstability in the Far East\u201d inspired by \u201cthe role Britain played in the nineteenth century as a stabilizer and balancer of Europe.\u201d\u00a0 We\u2019re talking, in other words, about this century\u2019s number one gunboat diplomat.\u00a0 He graciously concedes that a \u201ccomprehensive American-Chinese global partnership\u201d would still be possible, but only if Washington retains a significant geopolitical presence in what he still calls the \u201cFar East\u201d — \u201cwhether China approves or not.\u201d<\/p>\n

The answer will be \u201cnot.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a way, all of this is familiar stuff, as is much of actual Washington policy today.\u00a0 In his case, it\u2019s really a remix of his 1997 magnum opus The Grand Chessboard<\/em> \u00a0in which, he once again certifies that \u201cthe huge Trans-Eurasian continent is the central arena of world affairs.\u201d Only now reality has taught him that Eurasia can\u2019t be conquered and America\u2019s best shot is to try to bring Turkey and Russia into the fold.<\/p>\n

Robocop Rules<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yet Brzezinski looks positively benign when you compare his ideas to Hillary Clinton\u2019s recent pronouncements, including her address<\/a> to the tongue-twistingly named World Affairs Council 2012 NATO Conference.\u00a0 There, as the Obama administration regularly does, she highlighted \u201cNATO\u2019s enduring relationship with Afghanistan\u201d and praised negotiations between the U.S. and Kabul over \u201ca long-term strategic partnership between our two nations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Translation; despite being outmaneuvered by a minority Pashtun insurgency for years, neither the Pentagon nor NATO have any intention of rebalancing out of their holdings in the Greater Middle East.\u00a0 Already negotiating<\/a> with President Hamid Karzai\u2019s government in Kabul for staying rights through 2024, the U.S. has every intention of holding onto three major strategic Afghan bases<\/a>: Bagram, Shindand (near the Iranian border), and Kandahar (near the Pakistani border). Only the terminally na\u00efve would believe the Pentagon capable of voluntarily abandoning such sterling outposts for the monitoring of Central Asia and strategic competitors Russia and China.<\/p>\n

NATO, Clinton added ominously, will \u201cexpand its defense capabilities for the twenty-first century,\u201d including the missile defense system the alliance approved at its last meeting in Lisbon in 2010.<\/p>\n

It will be fascinating to see what the possible election of socialist Fran\u00e7ois Hollande as French president might mean.\u00a0 Interested in a deeper strategic partnership with the BRICS, he is committed to the end of the U.S. dollar as the world\u2019s reserve currency.\u00a0 The question is: Would his victory throw a monkey wrench into NATO\u2019s works, after these years under the Great Liberator of Libya, that neo-Napoleonic image-maker Nicolas Sarkozy (for whom France was just mustard in Washington\u2019s steak tartar).<\/p>\n

No matter what either Dr. Zbig or Hillary might think, most European countries, fed up with their black-hole adventures in Afghanistan and Libya, and with the way NATO now serves U.S. global interests, support Hollande on this. But it will still be an uphill battle. The destruction and overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi\u2019s Libyan regime was the highpoint of the recent NATO agenda of regime change in MENA (the Middle East-Northern Africa). And NATO remains Washington\u2019s plan B for the future, if the usual network of think tanks, endowments, funds, foundations, NGOs, and even the U.N. fail to provoke what could be described as YouTube regime change.<\/p>\n

In a nutshell: after going to war on three continents (in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, and Libya), turning the Mediterranean into a virtual NATO lake, and patrolling the Arabian Sea non-stop, NATO will be, according to Hillary, riding on \u201ca bet on America\u2019s leadership and strength, just as we did in the twentieth century, for this century and beyond.\u201d So 21 years after the end of the Soviet Union — NATO\u2019s original raison d\u2019etre — this could be the way the world ends; not with a bang, but with NATO, in whimpering mode, still fulfilling the role of perpetual global Robocop.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re back once again with Dr. Zbig and the idea of America as the \u201cpromoter and guarantor of unity\u201d in the West, and as \u201cbalance and conciliator\u201d in the East (for which it needs bases from the Persian Gulf<\/a> to Japan<\/a>, including those Afghan ones<\/a>). And don\u2019t forget that the Pentagon has never given up the idea of attaining Full Spectrum Dominance.<\/p>\n

For all that military strength, however, it\u2019s worth keeping in mind that this is distinctly a New World (and not in North America either).\u00a0 Against the guns and the gunboats, the missiles and the drones, there is economic power.\u00a0 Currency wars are now raging. BRICS members China and Russia have cordilleras of cash. South America is uniting fast. The Putinator has offered South Korea an oil pipeline. Iran is planning to sell all its oil and gas in a basket of currencies, none dollars. China is paying to expand<\/a> its blue-water Navy and its anti-ship missile weaponry. One day, Tokyo may finally realize that, as long as it is occupied by Wall Street and the Pentagon, it will live in eternal recession. Even Australia may eventually refuse to be forced into a counterproductive trade war with China.<\/p>\n

So this twenty-first century world of ours is shaping up right now largely as a confrontation between the U.S.\/NATO and the BRICS, warts and all on every side. The danger: that somewhere down the line it turns into a Full Spectrum Confrontation. Because make no mistake, unlike Saddam Hussein or Muammar Gaddafi, the BRICS will actually be able to shoot back.<\/p>\n

_________________________<\/p>\n

Pepe Escobar is the roving correspondent for <\/em>Asia Times<\/a>, a <\/em>TomDispatch regular<\/em><\/a>, and a political analyst for al-Jazeera and RT. His latest book is <\/em>Obama Does Globalistan<\/a> (Nimble Books, 2009). <\/em><\/p>\n

Copyright 2012 Pepe Escobar<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 tomdispatch.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Neoliberal Dragons, Eurasian Wet Dreams, and Robocop Fantasies – The multitrillion-dollar global question remains: Is the emergence of BRICS a signal that we have truly entered a new multipolar world?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[180],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18826"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18826\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}