MIHA: Broken BRICS?

“Geopolitics is chess with live ammunition.” – Unknown

Once a glittering acronym with dreams of rewriting the world order, BRICS — the economic alliance of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa — now resembles less a tectonic geopolitical shift and more a group chat where half the members have muted notifications and the other half are blocking each other.

The most glaring fracture? India.

India Was Never a Good Fit

To understand the BRICS rift, you have to start with the obvious: India was never really in sync with the others.

Russia and China — frenemies bonded by authoritarianism and nostalgia for empire — have used BRICS to challenge U.S. dominance and promote a multipolar world. Brazil and South Africa play the roles of regional powerhouses with varying enthusiasm and internal chaos. But India?

India is a democracy. A messy, loud, vibrant one, but a democracy nonetheless. It shares more culturally and strategically with the West than it does with a China that surveils its citizens like a paranoid ex or a Russia that weaponizes everything from gas to grammar.

India didn’t get the BRICS memo about being “anti-West.” Instead, India wants to be the West — with better spices and fewer pronouns.

MIGA: Make India Great Again

While the acronym isn’t official, “Make India Great Again” might as well be carved above Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s residence in New Delhi. It’s certainly etched on his brain. His economic nationalism, military modernization, and embrace of Indian exceptionalism echo the kind of populist realpolitik that makes globalists nervous and realists take notice.

Modi’s India has quadrupled down on military ties with the U.S., participated in the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD) with Japan and Australia, and bought drones, missiles, and aircraft from America like they were going out of style. India wants to be the arsenal of democracy in Asia — or at least, the arsenal of “don’t mess with us” in South Asia.

This isn’t just diplomacy. This is a tectonic shift.

When Indian troops square off with Chinese forces in the Himalayas, that’s not intra-BRICS dialogue. That’s two nuclear powers playing Game of Thrones at 14,000 feet. And it’s becoming clearer: India doesn’t want to be Beijing’s junior partner. It wants to be Washington’s strategic equal.

Broken BRICS, American Cement

So what happens when one-fifth of BRICS decides it’s done being polite?

You get a broken bloc.

India is signing defense pacts, conducting joint exercises with the U.S. Navy in the Indian Ocean, and launching “Atmanirbhar Bharat” — a policy of self-reliance that sounds spiritual but really more or less means “we’ll build it ourselves or buy it from Raytheon, not Temu.”

While Russia leans further into China’s embrace like a divorced dad crashing on his friend’s couch, and China throws Belt and Road projects around like bribes at a poker game, India is calculating, shrewd, and playing the long game. The world’s fifth-largest economy is betting that the 21st century won’t be owned by authoritarian clubs or communist kleptocracies — but by nimble democracies with nukes and Netflix.

The U.S., for its part, is embracing this shift with open arms and open contracts. Washington knows that India is the only realistic counterweight to China in Asia, and it’s treating New Delhi like the ally it hopes India will finally admit to being.

BRICS: From Challenger to Has-Been

Originally envisioned as a counterweight to the G7, BRICS now looks like a relic of globalization’s awkward teenage years. Brazil swings politically every election cycle, Russia’s economy is a military with oil, China is too busy building AI-enhanced dystopias, and South Africa’s economic turmoil is a cautionary tale.

India is the outlier — and the future.

Final Thought

In geopolitics, alignment isn’t about slogans. It’s about shared threats, mutual interests, and who brings what to the table when the bullets start flying. India has decided it doesn’t want to eat from BRICS’ buffet of grievance and ambition.

It wants a seat at a different table — one with cleaner forks, stronger allies, and better satellite coverage.

BRICS isn’t breaking.

It’s already broken.

And India’s walking away with the best silverware.

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Charles is a retired Army officer with more than 27 years of service and 7 combat deployments. He holds an MA in International Relations from Yale University. This article represents his personal opinion and not an official position of the US government or any other person or organization.

As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.