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Five major emerging economies are joining forces to create a coalition that may have no rival at present, historically or in the foreseeable future. Their acronym is BRIC, strongly suggesting an object that may soon smash the Western block's cracked and cracking glass house called the global economy, for better or worse. Calling any other formal economic coalition-- the EU, APEC, NAFTA, etc.-- ever formed "small potatoes" would be an overstatement.
As powerhouses separately, BRIC members combined could soon exceed even the impact of the Anglo-American alliance that created the World Bank and Internal Monetary Fund. With weighty ambiguities remaining after their recent inaugural meeting, whether or not BRIC will flex its muscles within or against these Breton Woods institutions is hard to tell, if they will collectively at all. These economic considerations leave out the facts that all except Brazil are nuclear powers, military mights and brokers of world politics as well.
In any case, the specter BRIC poses is full of paradoxical potentials: a balance to Western world dominance or a co-conspirator; a wiser or exponentially more volatile competitor; a partner with Cold War bones to pick or a skeletal public relations tactic; a way to gett the world off its US-dollar dependency or stay on? If these questions don't create an existential angst for concerned global citizens of any country, few will.
Strangely enough, the notion of BRIC was put forth five years ago in a report by investment bank Goldman Sachs. Indicating just how much economic power BRIC has, meaning how much freedom in any course they may choose to take and forcing others to go along: China has foreign exchange reserves of more than $1.5 trillion, Russia more than $500 billion, India close to $300 billion and Brazil around $200 billion.
The scale of the Scramble for Central Asia, pitting Europe's Eastern Partnership against China's formerly single-handed efforts, has just been tipped. BRIC, as a current event creating the future, has shown that to notions of constellations of nations must be added overlapping galaxies of their associations.
