BRiC: Harbinger of Geopolitical Doom

Walker's World: Building with BRICs by Martin Walker

WASHINGTON, May 14 (UPI) -- The concept of the BRIC countries -- Brazil, Russia, India and China -- was coined five years ago in a research paper from the Goldman Sachs investment bank.

This week, reality takes over from theory as the foreign ministers of the BRIC countries hold their first formal meeting in the Russian city of Ekaterinburg. They convene with an agenda that includes the issue of biofuels, food security, global financial trends and the impact of the slowdown of the U.S. economy.

They also want to discuss the way in which the global economy is governed, which seems to mean that they understandably want a much bigger role in the key institutions like the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and so on.

Or perhaps they would prefer, given the West's long dominance of these bodies, to forge some new institutions of their own...

...They may all share a common desire to see the United States taken down a peg or two, but so do many Europeans. And the future prosperity of all the BRIC countries depends on the continued prosperity and consumption of Americans, Europeans and Japanese, who for decades to come will continue to be the world's richest countries in terms of income per head.

It would be easy for the United States and its European and Japanese partners in the G7 to overreact to the coming of the BRICs and see this week's meeting of foreign ministers as a harbinger of geopolitical doom.