BRICS Expansion Is a Small Move in a Long Game

The BRICS grouping of major emerging economies — Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa — have agreed to invite six new member nations to their increasingly powerful club. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa made the marquee announcement this week at the conclusion of the annual BRICS leaders’ summit, held in Johannesburg.

While Western pundits have broadly dismissed the BRICS as still in its infancy, the inclusion of Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Iran — as well as major energy producers Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — represents a significant shift that can’t be easily dismissed.

From the outset, BRICS was an organization defined by a seemingly unrealistic optimism. The term “BRIC” was developed by economist Jim O’Neil in 2001 to highlight the strong growth rates in Brazil, Russia, India, and China in the wake of the September 11 attacks on the United States.

Throughout the 2000s, emerging market economies became a subject of investment fascination and, so many argue now, irrational exuberance.

Turkey was the poster child of this excitement. The rise of Turkey’s economy in the late aughts, for example, was compounded by the country’s benevolent soft power approach to having “no problems with neighbors.” This economic and geopolitical strategy propelled the…