On the surface of its concluding remarks, the BRICS 2024 Summit in Kazan, Russia appeared to suggest that there is no conflict of interest among the leading economies gathered at the ancient city. Below the surface, however, there is a serious question, far more significant than the BBC’s superficial, ignorant remarks about Russia spreading riots in Europe, about the viability of a concerted effort to pretend that no country may strive for hegemony. Is it possible for members of the BRICS alliance to prevent “the subjection of the world-embracing economic system to the profit interests of the bourgeoisie of each country?” [1]
In regards to the preceding alliance between the three most powerful leading economies at the BRICS 2024 Summit in Kazan, Russia, the so-called Russia-India-China triangle, an impromptu agreement to coordinate actions in Eurasia to undermine U.S. imperialism on the continent, several developments, whose discussion either happened behind closed doors, off the record, or confidentially between the relevant parties, bring into focus the disparate underlying economic and geopolitical interests of nation-states competing for control over the shifting center of capitalism.
Based on the most recent military, industrial, or commodity purchases, Russia’s approach to India reminds one of the old Chinese claims that Russia is actively balancing China’s rising power by arming India. The drive for global hegemony amidst war in both eastern Europe as well as the Mideast has led to a situation in which one of the major differentiators for great power has become the maintenance, supply, or sale of anti-air defense systems. There are really only five major great powers in the world whose military industrial complex are capable of producing, maintaining or advancing the technology required for anti-air defense systems. These anti-air defense systems together with their countries are the U.S.’s Patriot, Russia’s S-400, Israel’s David’s Sling, Europe’s SAMP-T and China’s HQ-9, indicating that remaining countries in the world must rely upon these powers for anti-air defense systems, in much the same way that the extraction, refinement or supply of uranium supersedes oil.
In that respect, India’s preference for Russian rather than Chinese anti-air defense systems is suggestive. India has chosen to purchase Russia’s S-400 anti-air defense systems over those of China, despite the Chinese system’s relatively cheaper price. According to an article published by Sky News in Arabic, the cost for the Chinese HQ-9’s missiles ranges from $300,000 to $1,000,000 in comparison to comparable missiles for Russia’s S-400. Missiles in Russia’s S-400 cost around $500,000,000. The cost for a complete Chinese HQ-9 battery ranges from $200,000,000 to $400,000,000. The cost for a complete Russian S-400 battery ranges from $2 to $3 billion. These prices constitute a substantial price difference for which political rather than merely market forces are responsible for covering. In the case of India, Russia’s supply of the much more expensive S-400 battery package costs $5.43 billion. These contracts are contracts of ‘deep power.’
On March 20th, 2024, the LeftOpposition stated about deep power, the following: ”Deep power is any guaranteed competitive advantage one state wields over another in the geopolitical struggle for a dominating influence in an industry, country, or continent that is designed to last longer than the completion of a mere transaction, transactions, or a single contract to a decades long partnership worth billions, if not trillions over its entire lifespan.”[2] Since these contracts with India are an example deep power, they consummate not only in the completion of a contractual obligation or a transition but in the establishment of a relationship forged for deep power relations. It is thus in the context of India’s purchase of Russian S-400 anti-air defense systems that one can attribute a plausible basis for the legitimacy of old Chinese suspicions about India’s arms against the BRICS alliance.
These claims are equally applicable to the complex series of relations, payments, or contracts Saudi Arabia’s relations with the BRICS countries thoroughly complicates. Russia, for instance, supplied Saudi Arabia—but not China—with one or more of its short to medium range anti-air defense systems, the famous Pantsir S1M, one of Russia’s many legendary anti-air defense systems (i.e., the Tor M2, or the Gibka-S). Saudi Arabia, however, is China’s, not Russia’s, largest oil importer, indicating how immensely complicated the situation regarding a straightforward relationship, partnership, or alliance may be outside of BRICS.
Russia’s new relationship with South Korea is no less a warning to Ukraine than to China. Although China’s relations with South Korean are generally positive, none of its treaties, pacts, or agreements rise to the level of a mutually guaranteed security and defense treaty. China does not nor has it sought a mutually guaranteed security and defense treaty with South Korea, much of whose northern border is along China’s.
How do these differentiated relations with India, Saudi Arabia or South Korean ensure the preservation of the preceding alliance, the so-called Russia-India-China triangle? In terms other than military contracts, weapons sales, or anti-air defense systems, the trade routes challenge an underlying agreement based solely on a decision to coordinate against U.S. imperialism.
Intense competition over the trade routes into Eurasia, for which the three countries are both the site of as well as the primary means, is widening, as countries such as China, Russia, Turkey, or the U.S. seek to establish the dominant, leading, principle gatekeeper for trade on or with Asia Minor. China’s first completed route through Eurasia signifies the beginning of its trade on rail with Europe for the Belt and Road Initiative, an infrastructure project with five aspects, including teaching the Chinese language. During the BRICS 2024 summit, China completed the delivery of 76 TEU (twenty foot equivalent units) from Berlin to Shanghai over more than 11,000 miles on rail. Ankara, whose aspiration for membership in the BRICS alliance derives from Europe’s fear of its rising power against the traditional center of European capitalism in Berlin, seeks to establish a route different from Chinas both for Europe as well as India. Ankara, for instance, received confirmation that the World Bank approved a loan for a railway through the famous passageway on the Bosphorus whose completion would enable the country to serve as a logistical hub European trade. These contradictions, one nation-state competing with another for hegemony for a European trade route to Mumbai, India, are inherent to the capitalist system where nation-states compete for influence, profit, or power.
In a system where nation-states are competing in a heavily globalized economy, the construction of alternative routes to Asia Minor leading inexorably to the harmonization of trade defies the more than twenty decades of war over these crucial routes. The War of 1914, for instance, resulted from a struggle over Germany’s establishment of a Bagdadbahn, a concession from Berlin to Mumbai. “The War of 1914,” Trotsky writes, was “the most colossal breakdown in history of an economic system destroyed by its own inherent contradictions.”
Turkey is already the recipient of Russia’s S-400 system, having completed the purchase years ago at a price around $2.5 billion dollars. Turkey seeks to leverage Russia’s experience with the construction of Nuclear Power Plants to build several throughout the country, indicating a deepening tie based on deep power. These contracts compete with China’s ambitions in NPP.
Turkey, whose application for membership in BRICS is still pending, continues to assert claims against Russia’s primary ally, the regime in Syria under Bashar Assad; along the lines of conflicting interest, Turkey is responsible for the construction of an artillery foundry in Mesquite, Texas, whose production of artillery shells in the 155mm caliber is intended almost exclusively for Ukraine’s war against Russia; similarly, Turkey is on schedule to deliver two major Ada-class multi-purpose corvette frigates to Ukraine’s navy in the heavily contested Black Sea region whose gatekeeper at the gates of the Dardanelles is Turkey. Turkey’s military contracts with countries in the Sahel region compete with Russia’s own. In the Maghreb, Turkey’s affiliation with the western rather than the eastern side of Libya contrasts sharply with Russia’s ally in Benghazi, Khalifa Haftar. Turkey, if these contradictions were not enough, is a fully fledged member of NATO.
What is now bringing together the triangulated countries in ties closer than any previous period of time in history is the common concern in ruling circles, on the one hand, that the recklessness of U.S. militarism, spread out now with attack dogs (i.e., proxy forces) on two fronts, one in Eastern Europe, the other in the Middle East, could become widely unhinged, while, on the other hand, that in the face of a heavily diminished role for the American dollar the opportunity to exploit weaknesses in foreign relations — the United States can no longer guarantee with its mere presence in Eastern Europe or the Middle East — is ripe for the taking.
America’s Federal debt, whose intractable rise continues to compound at $1,000,000,000,000 every 100 days, foreshadows darkly ominous clouds over its global role in the projection of a powerful system of global financial dominance in a world no longer based exclusively on the dollar.
Saudi Arabia’s rescission of the petrodollar amidst rumors about its embrace of the Chinese yuan exemplifies the vultures circling about the carrion in the twilight of America’s falling aquilifers in the redivided lands of the collapsed Ottoman Empire.[4] There is a quite feeding frenzy awry now due to the war in greater Judea, inviting diplomatic revolt in Aegyptus and Jordanus.
While China settled its border disputes with Russia in 2008, the settlement included China’s acquisition of half of the so-called Black Bear Island at the confluence of the two important river borders, the Amur and the Ussuri Rivers, while those with India around Ladakh appear to have been settled during the BRICS 2024 summit.
If the strategic social, political, economic or military partnerships no longer serve any of the profit interests of the nationalist bourgeoisie in their respective countries, these new recipients for the shifting center of global capitalism could easily engage in a renewal of suppressed hostilities over settled borders for the establishment of an altogether new hegemony.
Any number of situations, “situations, which concern railways, currencies, ports, trade routes, disputed territories or satellite nations, could “boil over” in the near future. With the world holding its breath for the next development, the time and the place for the beginning of the greatest breakdown in the history of human relations in the 21st century is upon us.”[5]
[1] – [(Leon Trotsky, Bolsheviki and World Peace, [New York: Boni and Liveright, 1918] p. 20)]
[2] – [العالم ينفق بسخاء على منظومات الدفاع الجوي، سكاي نيوز عربية، ١٥.١٠.٢٠٢٤]
[3] – [“Uranium Supersedes Oil,” LeftOpposition, March 20th, 2024]
[4] – [סעודיה וסין מחישות את המו”מ ביניהם להשגת הסכם על תשלום עבור רכישות הנפט הסיניות בסעודיה ביואן סיני במקום דולרים, דבקה, 03.16.2022]
[5] – [“The World Holds it Breath … before a Cataclysm,” LeftOpposition, February 1st, 2024]