Valdai Club

The states that concentrate the most capabilities are the “poles”, referred to here as polar states, and the distribution of capabilities occurs in two ways: bipolar, when two states concentrate capabilities, or multipolar, when three or more states concentrate capabilities.

There is a shared understanding among practitioners of international relations that the unipolar moment of the 1990's is gone and that we now live in a multipolar world. That the change has already occurred is reflected by the emergence of a new lexicon in international politics, writes Fabiano P. Mielniczuk for the 21st Annual Meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club

The option for disengagement from BRICS is gaining adherents among Brazilian diplomats and is being actively promoted by sectors of Brazilian organized civil society, especially those NGOs and think tanks that receive financial support from European and American institutions. The engagement of these sectors in the G20 events during Brazil’s Presidency of 2024 and the lack of interest in the BRICS process during Russia’s Presidency in the BRICS in the same year is another sign of alertness, writes Fabiano Mielniczuk.

The main conclusion one can draw from recent history is that, after the end of the Cold War, the region emerged as the target of great power politics in a world of increasing animosity, writes Valdai Club expert Fabiano Mielniczuk. In the future, 2019 may be remembered as the turning point that marked the beginning of a long period of violence and instability in South America.

Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa signed the Ufa Declaration, a 77-point document that summarizes the group’s achievements so far and outlines areas of further cooperation. Despite negative prospects from Western media, the Ufa Declaration reaffirmed the unity of BRICS.