The recent BRICS summit in Kazan was an unqualified success for Russian President Putin. It was his moment to demonstrate to his enemies in the West that despite the sanctions imposed on him over the Ukraine issue, he remains a pivotal force in global politics. The presence of Xi Jinping, Narendra Modi and Cyril Ramaphosa at the summit were of course a message to the West that a new alliance of nations, however tentative at the moment, has shaped itself as a counterpoint to the West. To what extent BRICS will play a larger role in the years ahead is, however, a question one cannot quite respond to at this time.
That brings us to the matter of how regional or intercontinental organisations have fared in the past many decades. The plain conclusion is that in a number of instances the results have not been pretty. The formation of the Regional Cooperation for Development (RCD) by Turkey, Pakistan and Iran in the mid-1960s was in the beginning looked upon as a promising new venture in the region. By the end of the decade, however, the RCD lost its shine.
And, of course, political changes in the three countries had little scope to accommodate the organisation. Besides the RCD, there have been bodies like the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which contributed impressively to promoting cooperation among the newly emergent African states in the post-colonial 1960s. But then came a time when the OAU needed to reinvent itself. The reinvention came through a replacement of the body with the African Union (AU).
Questions abound about the effectiveness of the AU, which has quite been helpless in the matter of preventing or rolling back coups d'etat in a number of countries over the last few years. The AU was expected to do for Africa what the EU has been doing for Europe, but given the tribal heritage as well as divergent national interests of its member-states, it has been unable to make much of a headway.
Now take the instance of the Arab League, which has been in existence since 1945. In the mid-1960s and early 1970s, with the voices of Arab nationalism growing increasingly louder in a volatile Middle East, it was a powerful unifying force for the countries it brought together. In recent years, though, it has not quite been able to assert itself over such issues as Palestine and the rising power of Israel in the region. It is an emasculated organisation today.
Two regional bodies, the South East Asia Treaty Organaisation (SEATO) and the Central Treaty Organisation (CENTO), midwifed by the United States (US) in the 1950s with the specific goal of containing communism, eventually died deserved deaths with the change in the landscape of global diplomacy. These two organisations were instruments which prolonged the Cold War and indeed attempted to impede the march of historical change. The demise of SEATO and CENTO were a signal for a new world order to emerge. To what extent that new world order was able to emerge is a question which students of global diplomacy will be able to answer.
But suffice for now to point to the QUAD, a body which, again at the instance of Washington, means to keep an eye on an increasingly ambitious China in the Pacific. The Chinese, since the arrival of communism in Beijing in 1949, have not been known to go for compromise on what they consider to be their national interests. It is therefore to be expected that their goal of getting back Taiwan as an integral part of the People's Republic will not be shaken, QUAD or no QUAD.
Changes in global politics over the past five or so decades have been as dramatic as they have been consequential. The fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s swiftly led to a natural dismantling of the Warsaw Pact, a body that was a counterweight to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) during the Cold War. Curiously enough, while the Warsaw Pact went the way of mortality, NATO has not only continued to exist but has also been a contributory factor to the making of such crises as the Ukraine war.
It was NATO's ambition of pushing itself closer to the Russian frontier through Ukraine that aroused President Putin's ire. Obviously NATO's role in the conflict has exacerbated the conflict in Ukraine and damaged the possibility of a peaceful world order through its clear provocation to the Russians. It is now a situation where Putin will not lose and will not permit Zelenskyy and NATO to win. Europe has been pushed to the edge.
Regional cooperation in South Asia was cheerfully looked forward to by the countries in the region when the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) took formal shape in 1985 through the first summit of heads of state and government in Dhaka. Nearly four decades later, SAARC is in a state of the comatose, with none of the member states of the body seemingly inclined toward taking measures for its resuscitation. The tragedy is simple: while other regions around the world move on through interstate organisations, ASEAN for instance, South Asia continues to drift in an atmosphere of uncertainty deepened by hostility defining ties between the states which constitute the region.
And, yes, ASEAN has been an effective body since its formation in 1967. It has been instrumental in promoting the collective economic and political interests of its member-states. One cannot quite say the same about the Non-aligned Movement (NAM). As for the Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC), it needs to spell out a clear vision of the future, politically and economically, it envisages for the nations which are part of its structure.
One organisation which has survived the vicissitudes of time has been the Commonwealth, a body which comprises countries that had once been colonised by Britain but subsequently became sovereign nations. Of late, however, the Commonwealth has welcomed into its fold countries such as Rwanda, Mozambique, Gabon and Togo, which were never under British rule, as members.
The Commonwealth has remained relevant through constantly emphasising its values of democracy, human rights, media freedom, free and fair elections. The recent summit of Commonwealth leaders in Samoa once more underscored these values, a healthy indication of the fact that given determination and a sense of history, regional and global organisations can indeed survive purposefully and adapt to changing times.
Whether BRICS can make a difference in today's world is a question the answer to which is dependent on the leaders of its member countries. In a multi-polar world, it will be regional bodies, stressing economic growth and political cohesion, which will be the trend of the future. A new generation of global leaders will be expected to play the role of statesmen in the transformation.
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