Brazil, Russia and BRICs: an emerging alliance?

Zirker Daniel; Baburkin Sergey Aleksandrovich

УДК 32

Д. Зёркер, С. А. Бабуркин

Бразилия, Россия и БРИКС: нарождающийся союз?

БРИКС становится влиятельным политическим, экономическим и культурным объединением великих держав. В статье рассматривается природа незавершенного политического и экономического союза между Бразилией и Россией - во многих отношениях наименее вероятных «союзников» в БРИКС - и перспектива их лидерства в обеспечении жизнеспособности этой международной структуры.

Ключевые слова: БРИКС, российско-бразильские отношения.

D. Zirker, S. A. Baburkin

Brazil, Russia and BRICS: an Emerging Alliance?1

BRICS has come to represent a powerful political, economic and cultural organization of great powers. This article explores the nature of the incomplete political and economic alliance between Brazil and Russia, in many respects the least likely "allies" within BRICS, and a potential bellwether of the viability of the organization.

Keywords: BRICS, Russia-Brazil by-lateral relations

"...A parceria económica entre Brazil e Russia, porém, está por construer-se."

Marco Maciel, Brazilian Vice-President, 1995-2003 (quoted

in Zubelzú, 2000: 78).

The still largely conceptual existence of BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) and BRICS (BRIC countries plus South Africa, after 2010) has pointed to the possibility of the imminent emergence of a powerful political organization, something more than an alliance, over the next decade. This has spurred an international dialogue, reinforced foreign policy trends, and underscored what appears to us to be a strengthening of national sovereignty strategies among "emerging middle-range powers," or perhaps what are better described now as "great powers" (GPs), even as the political organization of BRICS appears, at least for now, to be following more transnational trends.2 BRICS, as an almost arbitrary commercial and foreign policy grouping of four regionally significant great powers, and one middle power, would easily be one of the most unlikely alliances in history. It is geographically fragmented. Considering only Russia, China and India, it is an agglomeration of three mutually suspicious, and alternately cooperative, giants comprising nearly one-third of the world's population. Considering all five countries together, it could be both an economic and military giant, and a possible counterbalance to the

world's one remaining superpower. Are two of the most improbable allied countries within BRICS, Russia and Brazil, establishing a meaningful political and economic alliance? This paper explores this question in the context of the mutual perceptions of the two countries.

During its first four years of "existence" as BRIC, the entity was merely a concept, a grouping posited in a paper by an economist at the Goldman Sachs Group, Inc, Jim O'Neill, 3 which grouped four emerging economies as promising impressive and continuing economic growth in the near future (O'Neill 2011). While the addition of Brazil at the time seemed arbitrary, O'Neill has since felt gratified by Brazil's subsequent sterling economic performance.4 Sustained growth, and the degree to which the original four BRIC countries weathered the global economic downturn of 2008, gave great credibility to O'Neill's original concept. Beginning in 2004-2005, BRIC began to develop an independent, if inchoate, identity on its own, and meetings of its member states were scheduled. It became a sort of political panel, complete with common foreign policy responses, public struggles over its identity, attempts to institutionalize policies, and tacit struggles over leadership of the group, as well as continuing, if formally restrained, historical struggles between three of its component states. It did not yet

exist in any tangible sense.5 Recently, Brazil, Russia and China's foreign policy positions regarding Iran and Syria have represented unified positions, however, and BRICS has "become the bellwether for confronting the industrial countries on a wide range of issues..." (Roett, 2010). Also significant have been the first and second-track dialogues within BRICS (Yardely, 2012), attempts to increase and coordinate BRICS countries' aid to developing countries, the creation (or attempted creation) of internal institutions, 6 and the establishment of proto-alliance administrative structures.

The inchoate transnational character of BRICS, however, is in our estimate a façade that masks its essence: primarily a growing political and commercial alliance. Of the four original member states, Brazil and Russia are perhaps the most unlikely allies, principally because of geography and history. While historical tensions remain between India and China, for example, it is not inconceivable that Russia, India and China could, at some time become mutually supportive allies. Moreover, China and Brazil have a complementary and highly significant economic relationship, as do China and Russia. A future Indian-Brazilian economic and political relationship is at least a possibility. However, Russia and Brazil remain unlikely allies, and this is the principal focus of our article. We seek to explore the nature of the growing economic and political BRICS relationship between Russia and Brazil, with special attention to the mutual perceptions of Russia and Brazil, and the perceptions of both countries of an emerging BRICS alliance.

As part of its formal alliance, the BRICS countries are attempting in 2012 to integrate their stock markets, establish rules for the granting of lines of credit in local currencies, and begin the complex process of establishing a preferred trading currency other than the US dollar,7 and have evinced repeated (albeit restrained) struggles by three of its members, Brazil, China and Russia, over leadership and control of the organization, as we shall explore below. As an economic bloc, the grouping has evinced an undeniably impressive performance over the last several years,8 and increased their intra-BRICS trade dramatically. The four original BRICS countries are now best described as great powers (GPs) in the current parlance of international relations, producing fifteen percent of the global output, and by 2009 holding forty percent of the world's currency reserves (Levy, 2009:A6); by 2011 the BRICS countries held "an estimated $4 trillion in foreign reserves [while] mak[ing] up [at least] one-third of the

world's 6 billion population" (Marquand, 2011). The Brazilian newspaper, O Estado de Sao Paulo, reported in late March 2012 that BRICS was responsible in 2011 for 56 percent of global economic growth, as opposed to G-7's (seven richest countries) 9.5 percent (Monteiro, 28 March 2012). Each of these five countries of BRICS, moreover, is an undisputed (hegemonic) regional political and military power.9

Brazil is often said to have gained the most from its membership in BRICS (e.g., Barbosa, 2011). In 2006, in fact, Brazil became a net international debt-holding (rather than owing) country (Barros, 2011), with foreign reserves of US$ 350 billion, and this after having had the dubious title of the world's greatest debt-owing country in the mid-1980s. As a highly diversified exporter of a range of mostly agricultural commodities,10 and one of the few countries in the world that derives nearly half of its energy from renewable sources (Brainard and Martinez-Diaz, 2009: k. r. 116), Brazil has been able, with the help of the other BRICS countries, to become more fully integrated with the global economy than at any other time in the last 40 years.11 Former Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso bragged in May 2011 that Brazil had become an "emergent economy," thanks in part to BRICS, and that Brazil's amazing growth, expansion of its cash transfer programs to the poor, and a decrease in income inequality meant that Brazil had also become an "emergent society" (Cardoso, 2011). He was, in effect, describing Brazil's debut in the first decade of this century as a new great power.

All is not well in 2012 in the BRICS lands, however. Alternate organizations, most of which predate BRICS, quietly compete on economic and political levels.12 Moreover, the impressive economic growth rates of the BRICS countries have slowed considerably in 2011 and 2012, and the Brazilian media have taken a stridently critical view, referring to the "Comedy of BRICS" (O Estado de S. Paulo, 31 March 2012), and reporting in detail on the declining fortunes of the BRICS countries, with special reference to Brazil. O Estado de Sao Paulo has reported, for example, that Brazil and China are experiencing precipitously declining growth rates, now well below those of the G-20 (15 March 2012), that Brazil, of all the BRICS countries, is most dependent on European banks, and is thus in grave economic danger (Chade, 12 December 2011), that Brazil is losing its attractiveness to foreign equity investors, and that Brazil still has the highest income inequality (Gini coefficient) in BRICS, although the greatest im-

provement in its Gini coefficient (5 December 2011). Folha de Sao Paulo, the other major Brazilian daily with national distribution, reported that Brazil's labor costs are the highest in BRICS, and that its grade for "openness to business" is the lowest (Folha, 21 March 2012). Both newspapers have reported on Brazil's marked drop in its Transparency International Corruption Perception Index score, which is nevertheless still higher than those of China, India and Russia (e.g., Estado de S. Paulo, 30 November 2011).13

The ever unlikely BRICS alliance between Brazil and Russia remains quixotic at best. Nevertheless, the contemporary politics of the two countries are replete with comparisons. For example, both principal national leaders have established charismatic and personalistic governments, and, perhaps not surprisingly, have openly vied for leadership of BRICS (along with China's President Hu Jintao).14 Brazil's historic diplomatic relations with Russia did not prevent anger and a severing of ties following the Soviet Union's apparent influence in the Brazilian 1935 communist uprising, the "Intentona," nor a Cold War severing of ties on ideological grounds immediately following the Brazilian military golpe of 1964. Although there was a partial revival of ties in 1970, it was not until the election of Lula that a full diplomatic relationship was established. Brazil's emergent great power status, then, has appeared to put it on similar political grounds with Russia and the other BRIC countries, particularly as regards pronounced tendency toward mutual support of emerging great power policies, best exemplified by subsequent Russian, Brazilian and Chinese (but not Indian) policies toward Iran and Syria.

The age-old Brazilian joke, "Brasil, sempre o país do future," began to assume a less ironic character in the 1990s as the end of hyperinflation after 1994, and the resumption of huge economic growth rates, began to point once again to Brazil's rising middle power status, and upper middle power potential. In an analysis of Russo-Brazilian relations published in 2000, Graciela Zubelzú de Bacigalupo made a strikingly prescient statement, seemingly anticipating the "creation" of BRIC a year later. She observed that

A política externa do Brasil se refugia na auto-identificafao brasileira de país-continente e reconhece a importancia de vincular-se a países desse porte como Rússia, China e India, aos que se concede relevancia per se (Zubelzú, 2000: 62).

In one sense, the identification of these four countries together prior to 2001 merely recognized their common status as what we have referred to as

great powers, at least in an economic sense. Brazil and Russia, in particular, shared similar circumstances. Russia's economic panic (and market collapse) in the late 1990s, for example, was immediately followed by a similar one in Brazil. Both of these triggered international stock market declines, and both were followed by a decade of unprecedented economic growth in these two countries. They seem to be connected by circumstances beyond their control: global economic dynamics, unforeseen economic growth, a seemingly quixotic and speculative concept espoused by an economist, and a post-Cold War world that is ever smaller, connecting two disparate countries even as global populations spread beyond sustainability. However, is there substance to the Russian-Brazilian axis in BRICS? How do the people of the two countries regard each other?

BRICS and the Perceptions of Emerging Great Powers

Since Jim O'Neill's original economic conceptualization of BRIC in 2001, numerous critics have questioned the appropriateness of Brazil and Russia as continuing members of the group. O'Neill himself, suggests that the addition of Brazil to the economic grouping was originally questionable (O'Neill, 2011: 22), but was soon proven to be justified by the country's rapid and multifaceted economic growth.15 It is true that an economic panic in Russia in 1998 moved pointedly to Brazil in 1999, and both countries appeared vulnerable to the point of possible bankruptcy. However, by 2001 the economies of both countries had formally recovered and were growing impressively. O'Neill's empirical data looked sound at the time, and despite his doubts about the inclusion of Brazil, were proven to be right.

It was in 2006, however, and the first formal meeting of the four BRIC foreign ministers in New York, that a wide gulf emerged between the identity of the original economic grouping, BRIC, based as it was purely on economic performance, and a resultant political organization, what was to become BRICS by 2010. As dynamic economic powers, there is no doubt that China, Brazil, Russia and India occupy major positions in the world economic hierarchy, with China ranking second in the world in GDP, Brazil recently having overtaken the UK as sixth in GDP, Russia, primarily because of its oil and gas revenues, retaining ninth position in GDP, and India at eleventh. Mostly because of petroleum-based exports, Russia has remained an economic giant,16 but is unlike the more diversified economies

of Brazil, India, and China. South Africa's far smaller economy explains its exclusion from O'Neill's original list.17 Economically, the five countries have about one-fifth of the global GDP in April, 2012, but perhaps more significantly, all five countries fit the profile of middle-range and regionally hegemonic powers.

BRICS is by no means a political alliance 'made in heaven,' however. Undeniable tensions already existed between three of the BRICS countries prior to this century, and especially between China and India,18 although border and ideological tensions between China and Russia also have relatively recent historical bases.19 Brazilian news media tend to regard BRICS either with a degree of pride, or, because of the "limited" common interests" as "the fantasy of a strategic coalition."20 As a defining organization of great powers, or emerging world powers,21 moreover, the veiled struggle for leadership of BRICS between former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil, President Hu Jintao of China, and President-elect Vladimir Putin of Russia is perhaps most revealing of the growing importance that members have accorded this alliance, most indicative of the tentative role of "emerging great powers" in the contemporary global setting, and especially their ironic tendency to use transnational, or at least

multinational, organizations to reinforce national

22

sovereignty.

The concepts of "middle-range powers" and "emerging great powers" came with the end of the Cold War. In most respects, the policies of the would-be great powers represented a revitalization of national sovereignty in the form of national and regional economic and military hegemony. Canadian observers were especially early in examining their national situation in this context, although the end of the Cold War introduced many new variables that complicated the concept. Samuel P. Huntington's 1999 article, "The Lonely Superpower," described the plight of a world at the end of the Twentieth Century in which the US, the sole remaining "superpower" was gradually being overtaken by rivals, unwilling to serve as a "posse" for the increasingly self-interested "sheriff." Nevertheless, as David Mares noted in 1988, "we should expect changes in a country's position to lead to a significantly different behavior than would any changes within a specific position" (455). He added that "the balancing of the system will revolve around [the great powers]. International systems.. .are defined by the number of great powers" (456). In 1988, Russia still laid claim, accurately or not, to superpower status, and Brazil

and India were decidedly in the middle-power category. However, the dynamic that Mares described, based largely on the writings of Kenneth Waltz, has ultimately played itself out in the first decade of the Twenty-First Century, with one exception: the foreign policies of Russia, China, Brazil and India have been dictated more by their need for global order,23 and by their internal economic exigencies, than by designs on power in the global setting.24 Hence, they often seem confused and inconsistent, acting like middle powers, and, in Mares' 1988 description of middle powers, primarily concerned with protecting their national sovereignty from encroachment by others, principally the superpower (Mares, 1988: 457). MacFarlane argues, in fact, that "the structural/systemic approach implicit in the notion of 'emerging power' is the weakest as an explanation of Russian foreign policy behavior" (2006: 42), and that "emergent powers are distinctive because their identity is dynamic; their position is changing as their power grows and, along with it, their capacity to shape outcomes" (42).

A distorted political realism seems to rule the moment, with the immediate national self-interest of the US, and its major emerging rivals, increasingly dictating coalitions. The emerging GPs themselves, tending inconsistently to oppose US foreign policy, formed loose coalitions, as did the US with second-tier powers, usually rivals of the regional hegemons, the emerging GPs. As Huntington put it, "the United States and secondary regional powers have common interests in limiting the dominance of the major states in their regions" (Huntington, 1999: 47), and thus "with the emergence of Brazil as the dominant state in Latin America, U.S. relations with Argentina have greatly improved and the United States has designated Argentina a non-NATO military ally" (46). Hence, the emerging GPs, the major regional powers, tended to be pitted in their foreign policies against the US, the 'lone superpower' in Huntington's terms:

.the principal source of contention between the superpower and the major regional powers is the former's intervention to limit, counter, or shape the actions of the latter. For the secondary regional powers, on the other hand, superpower intervention is a resource that they potentially can mobilize against their region's major power. The superpower and the secondary regional powers will thus often, although not always, share converging interests against major regional powers, and secondary regional powers will have little incentive to join in a coalition against the superpower (Huntington, 1999: 46).

Opposition to US foreign policy seems to be the clearest identifying feature of regional or EGP status, and while regional powers, then "feel threat-

ened by what they see as the American pursuit of global hegemony... .American officials feel frustrated by their failure to achieve that hegemony. None of the principal power-wielders in world affairs is happy with the status quo" (37). At least three of the BRICS countries, Brazil, China and Russia, have recently opposed US and emerging UN policy regarding the "Arab Spring." With Russia and China's Security Council vetoes, and their contrasting emphases on geopolitics and arms sales, resistance to addressing the recent conflict in the region is natural. Tacit support of specific regimes, moreover, complicates matters. China has close ties to Iran, and Iran supports the Ba'athist regime in Syria. Russia feels that it was tricked by UN resolution 1973 on Libya, and the removal and execution of Qaddafi. China consistently supports national sovereignty as a reigning principle, and was only just persuaded to refrain from a veto in the Libyan case. In this context, China and Russia's veto of UN intervention in Syria "is considered 'payback' for Libya, and comes with an explanation from Moscow that the West could have again used a UN resolution to gin up another intervention" (Marquand, 2011).

Mutual Russian-Brazilian Perceptions of Brics Membership

a. Russia's Approach to BRICS

Russian leaders today often point to the importance of BRICS for Russia and for the overall development of international relations in the contemporary international setting. This is manifestly reflected in the official documents and statements of Russian officials. For example, according to The Concept of the Foreign Policy of Russian Federation, an official government document approved in July 2008,

Russia attaches great importance to improving the manageability of world development and establishing a self-regulating international system, an effort that requires collective leadership by the leading States, which should be representative in geographical and civilizational terms and fully respect the central and coordinating role of the UN. To these ends, Russia will more fully engage in such formats as the Group of Eight and its dialogue with its traditional partners, the Troika (Russia, India and China) and the BRIC Four (Brazil, Russia, India and China), as well as by more actively using other informal structures and venues for dialogue.

It is characteristic that this statement is placed in the part of the Concept entitled "Priorities of the Russian Federation for addressing global problems," under the subtitle "The emergence of a new world order."25 The National Security Strategy of the Russian Federation to 2020, moreover, approved in May 2009, considers Russia to be one of the key

players within a changing system of multi-polar international relations, and also regards BRICS as an important vehicle in Russian efforts to guarantee its own national security:

The transition in the international system from opposing blocs to principles of multi-vector diplomacy, together with Russia's resource potential and pragmatic policy for its use, have broadened the possibilities for the Russian Federation to reinforce its influence on the world stage. The Russian Federation has sufficient potential to count on the creation, in the medium-term, of conditions conducive to its entrenchment among the leaders of the world economy, on the basis of effective participation in a global division of labor, the improved global competitiveness of its national economy, of its defense potential, and of its level of state and social security. .In the long term, the Russian Federation will seek to construct international relations based on the principles of international law, and on the institution of reliable and equal security of nation-states....Russia perceives the United Nations and the Security Council of the United Nations as central elements of a stable system of international relations, at the basis of which lie respect, equal rights and mutually beneficial cooperation among nations, resting on civilized political instruments for the resolution of global and regional crisis situations. Russia will increase its interaction with multilateral fora such as the G8, G20, RIC (Russia/India/China), BRIC (Brazil/Russia/India/China), and will likewise capitalize on the potential of other informal international institutions.26

Russian officials point out that the creation of BRICS is a natural, rather than an artificial, phenomenon, by which they mean that it emerged spontaneously as a sharing of common interests. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov described its origins in 2008 in the following revealing terms: ".the 'troika'— Russia, India and China, as well as the 'chetverka' ['the four,' with the participation of Brazil] were created naturally, by life itself."27 At the same time Russian officials were careful to emphasize the initiative and the role of the Russian Federation in the development of the political organization of BRICS, especially in its early stages. Documents of the Russian Foreign Ministry provide ample examples of this emphasis. 28 In fact, Russia initiated the first meetings of the representatives of the BRIC countries in New York, Tokyo, and Yekaterinburg. In May 2008, a conference of representatives of municipal authorities and the universities of sister-cities of the four countries took place in Saint Petersburg. In December of 2008 the first meeting of experts and politicians of the four countries was held in Moscow, establishing "the second track" of BRICS. Finally, in June 2009, the first summit of BRICS took place in Yekaterinburg, Russia.

The early successes in the development of BRICS generated high hopes, especially on the part of Russian leaders. A vivid example is the reaction of President Dmitry Medvedev after the first summit

of BRIC, as it was called at the time, in Yekaterinburg in 2009. It was close to euphoria. The Russian President characterized the summit as "a really historical, extraordinary event," and as "an emergence of a new format of solving global problems."29 Answering the questions of Russian journalists after the second summit of BRICS, with the inclusion at that time of South Africa, held in Brazil in April 2010, Medvedev said:

Speaking frankly, I am very satisfied with this second summit. I cannot hide how satisfied I was that the first summit was held in Russia, because. there was hesitation as to whether BRIC would become a structure which could function at the highest level. In fact, however, we had coordinated some of our activities with Brazil, India and China for some time [before the formation of BRIC]. These are close countries, partners, which have good strategic relations, but there were no summits, and we held one for the first time in our country. Now there is a second summit and there will be a third summit. Chairman Ho Xintao invited us to China, and a system is emerging.30

After the third summit in China in April 2011, Medvedev said that with the inclusion of South Africa "to this format, to this forum," the BRICS countries were united not only as growing economies. They "are united by common views on the development of the international [setting], world economy and political processes. And in this sense our countries take similar positions on key issues." It can be noted parenthetically here that this point is key to our analysis. President Medvedev added, again significantly, that he did not remember who the author of the original acronym was.31 He even suggested his own, Russian variant of the acronym, BRUCI ('trousers' in Russian), which, he says, was at least "no worse" than BRIC.32

It is not surprising that other Russian officials tend to repeat such positive views of BRICS. Ambassador Vadim Lukov,33 in an article entitled "BRICS - A Factor of Global Significance," stressed that over a short period of time BRICs has become a major factor in world politics, generating growing international interest. As had now-President-Elect Putin, he argued that the creation of BRICS "was initiated by our country." He also pointed out that the third summit of BRICS, in April 2011, "reflected a considerable strengthening of international positions of this association."34 Russian experts also tend to assess BRICS in mostly positive terms. As one group noted, "Over several years BRIC[S] has been transformed from an abstract theoretical scheme into a political union of influential countries of the world with intensively developing economies."35

Foreign observers also note the leading role played by Russia in the organization of BRICS. U.S.

analyst Cynthia Roberts observed that it was Russian diplomacy, which skillfully employed the theoretical (analytical) construction proposed originally as a conceptual label by Economist Jim O'Neill for political purposes, in the establishment of a new international image and role for Russia, a leadership role, the equivalent of a locomotive in a movement toward a 'new world order' (that had been so inadequately described by former US President George H.W. Bush). Roberts is definite in assessing Russia's role in the original creation and development of BRIC. She points out that "Russian leaders" converted the Goldman Sachs investment idea regarding the original BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) into a "clear diplomatic strategy," and initiated contacts with the other BRIC countries leaders: ".so with fanfare Russia invited BRIC foreign ministers in 2006 to regular gatherings on the sidelines of the U.N. and other international fora." She was blunt in her assessment: "the BRIC bloc" was "created by the Kremlin," she contends (Roberts, 2011b; see also Roberts 2w010a and 2010b).36

b. Russia's Approach to Brazil

Russia's relations with Brazil are characterized as a priority in the Latin American policies of Russia, and are perhaps surprisingly mentioned first in formal policy description, ahead of Cuba and Venezuela, which are described jointly along with Mexico and Argentina:

Russia will seek to establish a strategic partnership with Brazil, broaden its political and economic cooperation with Argentine, Mexico, Cuba, Venezuela and other Latin American and Caribbean countries and their associations relying on the progress achieved in relations with the States of this region in recent years, enhance its interaction with these States within international organizations, promote export of Russia's high-technology products to Latin American countries and implement joint energy, infrastructure and high-tech projects, inter alia, in accordance with the plans elaborated by the regional integration associations.37

The contemporary development of bi-lateral Russian-Brazilian relations occurred in parallel with the formation and establishment of BRICS, although the Russian-Brazilian rapprochement in the Twenty-First Century actually began before BRIC. However, the two processes were soon intertwined and served to strengthen each other. In the joint declaration of the ministers of foreign affairs of Brazil and Russia in December 2006, it was observed that the process of development of Russian-Brazilian relations and a robust political dialogue at the highest levels began in earnest in 2002. This process, largely comprised of political coordination, achieved high visibility with the first visit of President Putin to Brazil in No-

vember 2004, and was confirmed during the visit of President Luis Ignacio Lula da Silva to Moscow in October 2005, and his visit to Saint Petersburg in July 2006 at the invitation of President Putin (for participation in the broaden segment of G-8). At the same time the ministers of foreign affairs declared that their countries "share the common view of a new, more just and democratic world order." This soon became the basis of cooperation within the new BRICS. 38 Official Russian comments from this point seem to point to their growing recognition, and sensitivity, that Brazil also has global leadership ambitions, and that BRICS is for Lula a similarly useful vehicle. In 2009, for example, President Medvedev observed to President Lula during the BRIC summit in Yekaterinburg that "life is complicated and such strategic partners as Russia and Brazil should communicate more frequently to elaborate their answers to the crisis, to develop commerce and the humanitarian sphere." Lula replied that "for me to participate in this bi-lateral meeting is a good opportunity to strengthen the partnership between Russia and Brazil. I think that the economic crisis makes us be more bold so that we could think over our bilateral relations and roles of the BRIC countries."39 Russian officials have diplomatically expressed admiration and appreciation of Brazil's growing international leadership. President Medvedev praised President Lula for his support and collaboration during his presidency. In his message to Lula in January 2011, Medvedev expressed his gratitude to the former Brazilian President for his "big contribution in the strengthening of friendship and constructive collaboration between our countries." He wrote:

Over the last eight years Russian-Brazilian relations have reached the level of a real strategic partnership, have become more confidential and intensive.. I am convinced that to a great extent it is thanks to your personal approach the regular Russian-Brazilian contacts on the highest level facilitated strengthening of the multifaceted, mutually beneficial collaboration of our countries, and the broadening of interaction in the international arena, including the framework of the U.N., BRIC and G-20.40

In his greeting to the incoming Brazilian president, Dilma Rousseff, Medvedev summed up the positive developments in Russian-Brazilian relations, emphasizing especially interactions in BRICS,41 and earlier had expressed the hope that this trend would continue under her presidency. He confirmed his "readiness to work in this partner-ship."42

It is primarily in the context of BRICS that Russia has focused on its relationship with Brazil in recent years. Before the emergence of BRICS, Russia

had taken limited steps to develop bi-lateral relations with Brazil. This was primarily dictated by the Russian need to reestablish positions in Latin America lost after the breakup of the Soviet Union. When BRICS first appeared as an economic grouping, it lent additional impulse for the development of bilateral relations. Conversely, the prior emphasis on renewed bilateral relations helped to develop and support BRICS. Russian-Brazilian interactions in the early stages of BRICS reinforce this observation. In a sense, the prior middle-range power politics that spurred Russia and Brazil to strengthen their ties helped to support the new "grouping," and to begin moving it toward a political organization. The Russian-Brazilian dimension of BRICS was thus important from the first, and the personal relations between the presidents of the two countries by 2010, Medvedev and Lula, played a markedly positive role. The real basis for Russian-Brazilian cooperation in BRICS, however, appears to be a coincidence of interests and approaches towards important global issues. As upper middle-range powers and regional hegemons, Russia and Brazil share a fundamental set of foreign policy concerns. It is not surprising, then that the two countries served as the first two venues for BRIC meetings in different spheres and on different levels. Brazil tended to support Russian initiatives and suggested that a meeting of finance ministers meet in Sao Paulo in November 2008, and that the second BRICS summit be held in Brazil in 2010.

Brazil turned out to be an active and easy partner, engaging in manifest displays of cooperation from the first. Russia saw Brazil as an important partner in Latin America because it was perceived as a source of strong support in strengthening Russian positions in the region.

Contemporary Russian-Brazilian bi-lateral relations received a strong impetus prior to the "creation" of the BRIC grouping. Both were subject to "related economic panics in the late 1990s. Moreover, Lula's rising prominence in the Socialist International drew Vladimir Putin's attention.

Soon after 2001 Russian observers noticed the active responses to Russian initiatives on the part of Brazil, and its active collaboration with Russia in the promotion of BRIC. They initially thought of Russia and Brazil as "the leaders of the choir" in BRIC. On the other hand, the Partido dos Trabalhadores in Brazil, poised to win the 2002 presidential election, saw Russia as a political counterbalance to US dominance of the region, and China as a potential economic counterbalance. BRIC was seen as a wel-

come encouragement for Brazil to join and participate in a grouping of major-middle-powers.

c. Brazil's Approach to BRICS

Brazilians manifests extreme ambiguity in their varying approaches to BRICS. Major editorials in the conservative national daily newspaper, O Estado de Sao Paulo, literally run the gamut, from affirmations that Brazil, of all the BRICS countries, has benefitted the most from Bricks, to an editorial in March, 2012, entitled "The Comedy of BRICS" (O Estado de S. Paulo, 31 March 2012).43 A visiting scholar from the UK, Walter Ladwig, wrote in a prominent editorial in O Estado de S. Paulo that "É a incompatibilidade fundamental dos Brics, e nâo sua falta de organizaçâo, que impede esse conjunto de emergentes de agir como força significativa no cenârio mundial" (2012). In another editorial, Rolf Kuntz wrote that Brazil had accepted a "semi-colonial commercial relationship with China," and that it was losing key opportunities to become a manufacturing great power by allowing itself to be reduced to agricultural and mining exports. By "betting with enthusiasm on doubtful partnerships like BRICS, more an acronym, even today, than a group of countries with broad common interests," it was committing fundamental errors in its national development policies. "There is nothing conjectural about this collection of errors and deficiencies. Nothing will change without recognition of this fact" (Kuntz, 2012).

The careful media reports of Brazilian and Russian rhetoric involving BRICS, however, are significant indicators of the governments of the two countries focus on this organization. At the end of 2011 the Brazilian Ambassador to Russia, Carlos Antonio da Rocha Paranhos, presented the Brazilian approach to BRIC and the assessment of the Brazilian-Russian interaction within the BRICS format:

Building upon the Goldman Sachs surveys, the initiative of singling out the BRICS countries evolved and extrapolated the boundaries of the private sector and the Governments of these countries took over the idea. In other words, the very idea of the BRICS as a group evolved from a creation by the market operators into something of more articulated exercise conducted by the interested governments....Nowadays, after the consolidation of the annual summits of Heads of State and Governments and the creation of some structures of coordination, such as the frequent meetings of Ministers of Finance and Health, of National Development Banks and of academic institutions, the BRICS can be considered as an effective mechanism of political coordination and economic cooperation, without a rigid formal structure (Paranhos, 2011).

The Brazilian Ambassador admitted that the Russian leadership initiative in the building the BRICS organizational format had been crucial:

The Foreign Ministers of the BRIC met upon initiative of Russia in 2008, in the city of Yekaterinburg, in what was then the first stand alone governmental meeting of the group. I stress this because there were meetings before on the margins of the UN General Assembly in New York, but Russia, showing its interest in the BRIC idea, decided to take the initiate to invite for this meeting of Foreign Ministers in Yekaterinburg. And in 2009, the Heads of states and the governments of the BRIC gathered in the same city for the first summit of BRICS here in Russia.. Russia hosted the first meeting of the foreign ministers and also the first BRICS summit; and Brazil, having hosted the second summit, had a relevant role in fostering the incorporation in the agenda of deliberations of political and strategic themes and in promoting the establishment of channels of dialogue among the civil societies....Brazil and Russia were the first BRICS countries to inaugurate academic centers dedicated exclusively to the BRICS issues: the BRICS Policy Center in Rio de Janeiro, created in 2010, and the BRICS Center of MGIMO, established more recently, in the current year.. .(Paranhos, 2011).

However not everybody agrees that Brazil has been a primary partner (with Russia) in building BRICS. In view of the Chinese Ambassador to Russia, perhaps not surprisingly, this place is rightfully occupied by China, and "in the business [cause] of creation and advancing BRIC, Russia and China are the main initiators." 44 The Brazilian Ambassador emphasized Brazil's role in the development of BRICS:

In 2010, Brazil was responsible for organizing the II Summit of Heads of States and Governments. In the context of that Summit, which took place in Brasilia, there were organized many other different events "ad hoc," such as a Think Tanks Seminar, a Meeting of High Representatives for Security and Strategic Issues, a Business Forum, a Meeting of Development Banks, among other events organized not only in Brasilia, but in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo as well. Therefore, Brazil has contributed to the enlargement of the thematic scope of the BRICS group, with the incorporation in the agenda of deliberations of political and strategic themes and with the establishment of channels of dialogue among the civil societies in the BRICS format. It is important to note as well that Brazil took the initiative of elaborating in 2010, with the assistance of its BRICS partners, the BRICS Bibliographic Catalogue, which includes lists of books, reviews and other relevant materials in Literature, History, Politics, Economics, and Sociology, among other areas of interest to the 5 countries." 45

The Brazilian Ambassador further emphasized the importance of intra-BRICS trade:

.despite the negative effects of the world financial crisis of 2008/2009 and the current economic crisis in Europe, there has been a significant increase in the flow of exports and imports among the BRIC countries. In the specific case of Brazil, in the period before the world economic crisis, 2003-2008, summing up the value of trade between Brazil and the other BRICS countries, the flow of trade went from US$ 10.7 billon in 2003 to US$ 51.5 billon in 2008, which is a growth rate of over 500%.

With Russia, the bilateral trade grew fourfold, from US$ 2 billion in 2003 to around US$ 8 billion in 2008.. ..With China, the bilateral trade in the period 2003-2008 grew almost 6 times, going from US$ 6.7 billion to US$ 36.4 billion in 2008. Nowadays, China is the major tradind partner of Brazil, surpassing the USA in 2009.46

Summing up Brazilian-Russian interactions in BRICS, the Brazilian Ambassador concluded that "In the context of the BRICS group, Brazil and Russia have been strengthening their special ties and agreed-upon formats and [thereby]further strengthening the BRICS mechanisms....Brazil is proud to participate in the BRICS initiative and to have Russia as its strategic partner within the BRICS group."47

d. Brazil's Approach to Russia

Russian-Brazilian relations have a long and uneven past, beginning with Russia's formal recognition of Brazil in 1827 and the establishment of formal diplomatic relations in 1828. However, from the first the relations were "distant" and archaic. They were characterized after 1917, and the founding of the Soviet Union, with hostility and ideological tension (Zubelzú, 2000: 59), and this reached a nadir in 1935 with the Brazilian communist revolt, or "intentona," as noted above. By the 1980s Brazil and the Soviet Union engaged in a series of joint ventures, with commerce between them still minimal but expanding by 30-34 percent per year (Zubelzú, 2000: 61). Brazil did not engage in the international boycott of the Moscow Olympics. The Soviet Union nevertheless persisted in emphasizing its exports to Brazil as the basis of the commercial relationship. After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of Russia in the 1990s, formal contacts between the two countries remained minimal. President Yeltsin met with President Cardoso only twice, and only once when Cardoso was president,48 although military ties were strengthened in 1997, 1999 and 2000 (Zubelzú, 2000: 73), and Vice-President Maciel visited Moscow just after Vladimir Putin came to power, in meetings that Zubelzú describes as "indicating clearly the intention of both parties to recoup for lost time" (2000: 79).

In the decade since the conceptualization of BRIC, the most notable indication of its impact as a foreign policy alliance has been the UN votes, and international policy positions, on Syria and Iran. An analysis of these is beyond the scope of this paper. Suffice it to say that Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa have tended to oppose US-led UN interventions in the "Arab spring" and Iranian nuclear crisis, and that India has positioned itself, in part because

of it hostile borders (with China and Pakistan, especially) as a much less reliable foreign policy partner. South Africa is simply too economically weak to be considered in this nexus. This leaves the big three, what we have chosen to call the BRaC.

BRICS-a -BRaC: Brazil, Russia and China, an Emergent Alliance?

India's nuclear weapon capable ballistic missile test in April, 2012, widely regarded as a hostile warning to China, and India's inconsistent and essentially (but not entirely) pro-US foreign policies, for example regarding the Arab Spring, have effectively placed it outside of the prospects of a major GP alliance, even if we discount other concerns (mentioned above). South Africa is simply not on the same level of global power. This leaves Brazil, Russia and China as likely adherents to s post-BRICS, or super-BRICS alliance, according to the modern 'science' of acronyms, BRaC. In this context China maintains strong commercial linkages with Brazil and Russia, but the Russian-Brazilian axis, even in the aftermath of complementary policies on Syria and Iran,49 remains dubious at best. Brazilian and Russian perceptions of BRICS, and of each other, may be the only indicator of the potential for a lasting and meaningful BRaC.

Regardless of effusively positive assessments of BRICS by Russian authorities, the views of Russian experts on the subject are far from unanimous. There are BRICS-optimists and BRICS-pessimists, and a multitude of different assessments regarding the nature of the roles different countries of BRICS will play in the future. For example, A.Orlov, the head of the Center for International Studies of the MGIMO, noted that "at the current stage it is the political will of the leadership of the four [countries] which is consolidating the BRIC, although there are its own leaders (of choir). They are Russia and Brazil." He also stated that "in the political sphere it would be in our interests that India and Brazil join the permanent members of the Security Council of the U.N. as a result of its reform. It would be for the better for the international organization and make for the further growth of the authority of the BRICS in the world."

50

However, there are very different Russian assessments of BRICS, of the question of leadership in BRICS, and of the importance of the "BRICS axis", as it is increasingly coming to be known. For example, some Russian foreign policy specialists argue that "BRIC[S] is China's project and is useful only

to [China], although Beijing thoroughly hides this." Supporting this view, S.Luzianin writes that

Currently, because of its economic and other recourses and possibilities, China is really an informal leader of the project, its main 'pole'.. ..The Chinese leading role is seen when analyzing the internal structure of BRIC[S]. The pair 'PRC-RF' does not work here as an [organizational] factor. It is difficult to speak of Chinese-Brazilian, Chinese-Indian, Indian-Brazilian or Russian-Brazilian pairs leading this project. More probably, for the future the key and leading component in the project will continue to be China which, depending on the world situation, will use this or that pair in the framework of the project.51

One of the issues currently under intense discussion in Russia is the further institutionalization of BRICS. In this regard, V. Sergeev and E. Alexeenkova, researchers with the Institute of International Studies at MGIMO, are convinced that each of the primary four BRICS countries are interested in further institutionalization of BRICS, although for different reasons. As regards Brazil and Russia, they point out to the following arguments. According to these authors:

It is obvious that BRIC[S] is the cause of great enthusiasm in Brazil. Being energetically and practically independent, having a large productive base, and attempting to develop its own internal market, Brazil, using the concept of BRIC[S] is trying first of all to get political dividends in terms of the participation of Brazil in the formation of a new "just" world order in reforming the U.N. as well as the main financial institutions. Brazil is interested in elevating its role in G-20 by joining a club of those who are "saving the world" from the world crisis and what is not less important for [Brazil] in the context of geopolitical trends of development in the Twentieth Century, Brazil hopes to consolidate its status as a regional power and representative of the interests of the countries of Latin America at major international venues. That is why it is possible to say with some confidence that Brazil is interested in further institutionalization of the bloc and a broadening of the agenda in collaboration with the four countries.52

As for Russia, Sergeev and Alexeenkova write:

At this moment in Russia a clear understanding has formed that the further development of cooperation in the framework of BRIC may be useful for us. However, from the economic point of view, Russia's prospects to stay in the club of "saviors of the world economy" are most foggy. If we look at BRIC from an economic angle as was done in the original concept of Goldman Sachs, Russia [would be] the first candidate 'to drop out" of BRIC. However, geopolitical advantages from the institutionali-zation of BRIC may bring major political dividends to Russia. It seems that Russian leadership hopes to convert [their] political and symbolic leadership in the BRIC club into [the role of] "saviors" (to which Russian leaders made a serious claim by hosting the first official summit of BRIC), and from there to an increase of its weight in G-8 as well as in G-20. Taking the position of a "mediator" between G-8 and BRIC, perhaps, will make it possible to use this position in the dialogue with the developed countries with the aim of transforming the international financial structures with maximum profit for itself. 53

It should be noted that in discussions of BRICS in Russia, the positions of the optimists have became more popular. At the end of 2011, when a new report from Goldman Saks was published, one which attenuated to some extent the optimistic perspectives of BRICS as formulated ten years ago, the news was reported by dozens of Russian newspapers. However, regardless of the economic prospects of BRIC, which look considerably less optimistic in light of the latest forecast of Goldman Sachs, Russian-Brazilian relations seemed to have received a good, if not unambiguous, impetus because of BRICS, and now appear to manifest strong prospects for future development.

Many commentaries on BRICS criticize the specific grouping of countries, or suggest that the fifth partner should have been Mexico, South Korea or Indonesia, nomenclatural complications to the contrary notwithstanding.54 We suspect that a sounder re-organization, in light of BRICS' de facto role as an alliance of middle-range and upper middle-range powers with aspirations to super power status, and the consequent need to challenge US foreign policy effectively, would reduce the grouping to three countries: Brazil, Russia and China, a "BRaC," if you will.55 Although India fits the growth and overall GDP profiles for the original economic grouping (South Africa does not), and is clearly regionally powerful and adequately suited to fit the political psychology and behavior of the 'middle-range powers,' it is either relatively economically unconnected with the other BRICS partners (Brazil, contemporary Russia, South Africa), or openly threatened by, and therefore potentially hostile to, one key member of BRICS, China. It should be added that "the two countries also do an increasingly booming business with each other. China recently became India's largest trading partner, and both have worked together to advance similar positions in global trade and climate change negotiations (Bajaj, 2010). Vikas Bajaj also observed, however, that there is a pronounced competitive element between the two countries, and "as recently as the 1990s, China's and India's trade with four South Asian nations — Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan — was roughly equal. But over the last decade, China has outpaced India in deepening ties" (Bajaj, 2010). Attempts by China to resolve tensions in 2010 seem to have failed.56 Most significantly, perhaps, there is a legacy of border warfare that underlies current relations between the two countries, the most recent of which (1962) in which China clearly prevailed, and fear of a Chinese military threat is said to explain India's long-range mis-

sile test of late April, 2012, which was said to give India the capacity to hit most major Chinese cities with a nuclear weapon (Timmons and Yardley, 2012). A consequent buildup of tensions should not be unexpected. As Yardley (2010) noted,

India aspires to membership on the United Nations Security Council, and China is now the only permanent member nation that has not explicitly endorsed such a move. But what has rattled Indian leaders even more is their contention that China is being deliberately provocative in Kashmir as it grows closer to Pakistan, China's longtime ally and India's nemesis. China has also been expanding its diplomatic and economic influence around South Asia, stepping up its involvement in the affairs of Sri Lanka, Nepal and the Maldives.

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Timmons and Yardley (2012) conclude that "Perhaps no Asian nation has been more unnerved by rising Chinese power than India." In our view, then, India may fit the economic grouping BRIC, but not BRICS, nor, as we suggest, BRaC.

In our estimate, then, BRaC now fits the form of a coherent and cohesive pre-alliance. Brazil and Russia are undeterred by growing military tensions between China, the US, South Korea, the Philippines, etc. Both countries manifest the policies (along with China) of 'middle-range powers.' They aspire to great power status, and see themselves moving in the near future in that direction. Their policies regarding Iran and Syria are particularly revealing in this regard. Brazilian (and Turkish) attempts to mediate the crisis in 2011 and 2012 have largely met with defeat, although gaining the tacit support of at least two of Brazil's BRICS colleagues, and UN attempts to intervene in the 'Arab Spring' have likewise struggled against a more unified BRICS.57

Conclusion

Russian-Brazilian relations remain a central feature of BRICS architecture, although perceptions that China is primarily benefitting from BRICS, based on its imminent vault into superpower status, are especially evident in Russia. Huntington noted in 1999 that Russia would find it difficult to align with China in an anti-US coalition because of "Russian reluctance to be the junior partner of a much more populous and economically dynamic China" (46). It remains to be seen whether Russia or Brazil are emerging great powers. MacFarlane reminds us that "Russia is more properly seen as a state that has recently experienced substantial damage and is attempting to stop the bleeding" (2006: 43), and Brazil's profound (if improving) socio-economic disparities will continue to deprive it of the energy, if not the popular mobilization, necessary to sustain

such status. The balance that Brazil brings to BRICS, however, seems evident. In a strong sense, Russia and Brazil find themselves in the vanguard of BRICS. They have cooperated on key political initiatives, especially during the first stages of BRICS development. Their mutual efforts gave an impulse and supported the movement during the first stages. It is probably not an exaggeration to say that BRICS has helped to make Russian-Brazilian relations more robust and intensive, moving them up to a new level, and giving them strategic character. It must be observed, however, that the idea of BRICS, and interactions in the context of BRICS, do not explain all aspects of Russian-Brazilian relations. BRICS is mostly global and strategic in nature, and at the most has facilitated the development of Russian-Brazilian relations and given them a more serious and strategic character.

A more cynical view of BRICS is frequently expressed by the Brazilian media. A recent editorial in the Estado de Sao Paulo typifies the continuing priority that national sovereignty, national self-interests, and, specifically, a permanent Brazilian seat on the Security Council, have in presumptions regarding the value to Brazil of BRICS:

Agora [BRICS] sao cinco países com limitados interesses comuns e grandes diferenjas em objetivos estratégicos -descontada, naturalmente, a fantasia brasileira das grandes parcerias contra a opressao das velhas potencias imperialistas. Mas China e Rússia parecem continuar muito á vontade na companhia de tres dessas potencias - Estados Unidos, Reino Unido e Franja - no Conselho de Seguranza da ONU. O Brasil pouco pode esperar dos Brics em sua campanha por um assento permanente no conselho (O Estado de S.P., 28 March 2012).

Writing in 1999, however, Huntington took a largely optimistic view of the future, albeit one that continued to stress national sovereignty and national self-interests as defining features. He argued that the 'uni-multipolar world' that he saw in the late Twentieth Century, replete with wars and threats of wars, would eventually give way to a more reasonable and peaceful multipolar world:

In the multipolar world of the 21st century, the major powers will inevitably compete, clash, and coalesce with each other in various permutations and combinations. Such a world, however, will lack the tension and conflict between the superpower and the major regional powers that are the defining characteristic of a uni-multipolar world. For that reason, the United States could find life as a major power in a multipolar world less demanding, less contentious, and more rewarding than it was as the world's only superpower (Huntington, 1999: 49).

Huntington referred to a "more broad-based, active, and formal anti-American coalition [which] has yet to emerge" (Huntington, 1999: 45), and which,

he assumed, would presage a move to a more peaceful and less contentious multi-polar world. In this context, perhaps the gradual emergence of BRICS, or even BRaC, then, represents a movement toward a more secure, inter-connected and, in a global sense, prosperous future, widespread perceptions to the contrary notwithstanding. The original concept of BRIC, however, has little to do with this.

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