The conflict between Russia and Ukraine has highlighted the need for restructuring of the existing unipolar world order. The institutions which emerged decades ago, such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, UN, NATO, etc., primarily dominated by the hegemonic United States influence and its Western allies, have proved incapable of supporting resolution of the emerging issues in the global arena and thus have lost their purpose as described by their existing mandates.

Most of the institutions previously mentioned aim to advance US and Allies interests at the expense of all other actors involved. Ukraine itself has been used as a puppet state to provoke Russia with false promises of joining the Western alliances. Even during the years when it was at its weakest point, Russia was always on the watchlist of the West. The threat became more prominent as President Putin came to power and introduced a number of constitutional and economic reforms which brought the Russian Federation onto the path of economic recovery and rapid advancement. To contain its influence, West saw NATO expansion as the only adequate response. Never did these Western states attempt to adjust their foreign policies to focus on establishing cultural and economic cooperation with Russia, which would have been much more beneficial for all parties involved, as opposed to the current relations between the two. Many experts have described the current approach West has taken toward Russia as suicidal and those who pay attention to the inflation would certainly agree.

BRICS union (initially known as BRIC), emerged in 2001 and will most likely serve as a backbone of the new world order. BRICS represents five major emerging powers of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. These five emerging powers host about half of the world’s population and represent about 20% of the world’s GDP. Additionally, four other members recently joined the platform: Bangladesh, United Arab Emirates, Uruguay and Egypt. The convenient and pragmatic relationship which was formed among these states has an aim of pooling together the influence of the members in order to achieve objectives agreed upon by all members. Many have argued that because they are so geographically dispersed, the union will not advance as believed initially. However, although little attention has been given to its work in the Western media, BRICS has made significant advancements within the respective member states in the domain of infrastructure finance, trade, urbanization and climate change. Could BRICS be a competitor to the current IMF and World Bank? UN and NATO possibly?

The two most significant achievements of BRICS have been the institutionalization of the New Development Bank (NDB) and the Contingency Reserve Arrangement. The importance of these institutions certainly cannot be undermined as they have offered very concrete results. They also offer an alternative governance paradigm in comparison to the IMF and the World Bank. These institutions may not replace IMF and World Bank in the near future, however their founding principles of respect for sovereign equality and pluralism in global governance, provide an alternative currently, but judging by the unfolding events in the global arena, these will also serve as the basic building blocks of the new multipolar world order. BRICS does not have a joint foreign policy, nor does it cooperate in military initiatives, regime changes and such, but rather operates more as an economic development agency working toward improving economy and infrastructure of member states, while still supporting members to pursue their own foreign policy initiatives. This is mainly noticeable in the most recent sanctions against one of the members, Russia, and refusal of remaining four members to condemn its actions or impose the sanctions as requested by the West. Rather, their economies continue to thrive through strengthened trade amid the current world chaos.

BRICS is on the agenda of many other nation states. Canada, for example, has been examining possible cooperation with BRICS in its attempt to diversify its trade, which is highly dependent on the neighbouring United States. Considering that Canada shares similar values and legal principles, along with sharing a common language with South Africa, strengthening its trade relations and economic cooperation with South Africa would certainly be beneficial for Canada and its aims to diversify its trade portfolio. There is an enormous potential in South Africa due to its rich natural resources. Will Canada be able to establish closer ties with BRICS through strengthening cooperation with South Africa while actively pursuing a NATO focused foreign policy? The two ideas are mutually exclusive. While one aims at improving cooperation and creating a win-win situation of all parties involved, the other is a military alliance which aims at imposing the Western ideals of democracy primarily through forceful means. Unless Canada reduces its ties with NATO and unless the country reduces its intervention in other sovereign states’ internal affairs, its cooperation with BRICS seems less possible, apart from the current individual relations it has with each of the BRICS member states.

The new multilateral world order will focus on increased South-South cooperation which will provide a platform to less developed and developing states to strengthen their economies and further advance their global positions. This force will balance the Western power house and the US hegemony, as we have known it for decades, will most likely be brought to an end. Although geographically dispersed, the BRICS states have influence in very large parts of the world – the African Union, CELAC (the community of Latin American states) and Eurasia. Since the member states have increased their trade in national currencies and formed alternate financial systems to the SWIFT international financial system, this will have a negative effect on the dominant world currency, the US Dollar, which will in turn negatively affect the current international institutions such as IMF and the World Bank. Therefore, as a Bulgarian Prof. Ivo Hristov recently pointed out in an interview, we are in the process of capitalism and globalization destruction, out of which new macroblocks will emerge. This process will be a lengthy and painful path, with more Ukraine-like events taking place, before US is ready to give up its hegemony and take part in the new system which relies on respecting political and social structures of other states and trading on an equal level playing field. Who will be the next victim: Indo-Pacific? Balkans once again possibly?