Our Monday News Analysis | What the World Reads Now!

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Living Words from John Paul II | ‘Light and Darkness’

“The new millennium opened with two contrasting images:

One, the sight of multitudes of pilgrims coming to Rome during the Great Jubilee to pass through the Holy Door, which is Christ, our Savior and Redeemer;

And the other, the terrible terrorist attack on New York, an image that is a kind of icon of a world in which hostility and hatred seem to prevail.

The question that arises is dramatic: on what foundations must we build the new historical era emerging from the great transformations of the twentieth century?”

Saint Pope John Paul II
17th World Youth Day, Evening Vigil with Young People
Toronto, Downsview Park – July 27, 2002

Building the Bridge Foundation

EDITORIAL | Multipolar Peace or Imperial Suicide

By Abraham A. van Kempen
14 September 2026

The Nobel Peace Prize should call on Trump, Xi, and Putin to transform rivalry into restraint, shift from multipolar power to peaceful coexistence and connectivity, and turn nuclear threats into a global commitment for survival.

Off to the Races …

The case for Presidents Donald J. Trump, Xi Jinping, and Vladimir V. Putin sharing the Nobel Peace Prize is not a polite diplomatic flourish. It is a plea written under a darkening sky. We are standing on the rim of a nuclear century, watching old empires rattle their sabers like chains in a storm, while ordinary families still want the same simple things — bread on the table, children asleep without fear, borders that do not become graveyards, and leaders brave enough to speak before missiles speak for them. Either the great powers learn to negotiate a multipolar peace, or the exhausted custodians of the unipolar age will keep gambling with humanity’s survival. The verified speech record is clear: Putin in Berlin and Munich, Trump in Riyadh, and Xi in Tianjin were not making stray remarks. They were lighting signal fires across twenty-five years of historical darkness.

Think of Putin’s Berlin speech as a door left open in a house that might have sheltered Europe. Speaking in the Bundestag, mostly in fluent German, he called Russia “a friendly European nation” and declared that “stable peace on the continent is a paramount goal for our nation” (Putin, Berlin Bundestag, 25 September 2001, paras. 32–33). You can almost see the scene: the young Russian president at the lectern, the German chamber listening, history holding its breath, the ruins of the twentieth century still visible in the rearview mirror. It was not an ultimatum. It was an invitation. Then came Munich in 2007, and the open door had become a warning bell. Putin named the unipolar world for what it is: “one center of authority, one center of force, one center of decision-making” — “one master, one sovereign” (Putin, Munich Security Conference, 10 February 2007, paras. 10–12). He warned that “security for one is security for all” and quoted Roosevelt that “when peace has been broken anywhere, the peace of all countries everywhere is in danger” (paras. 4–5). Berlin was the hand extended across the table. Munich was the hand pulled back before the table was overturned.

Trump’s Riyadh speech struck the same imperial nerve, but from inside America’s own rib cage. His words were not polished marble; they were a hammer on a locked gate. He denounced the nation-builders who “wrecked far more nations than they built” and the interventionists who entered “complex societies that they did not even understand” (Trump, Riyadh, 13 May 2025, Saudi-U.S. Investment Forum transcript, para. beginning “This great transformation…”).Then he said what every old civilization knows in its bones: “peace, prosperity, and progress ultimately come from embracing your heritage and traditions, not rejecting them” (same paragraph sequence). That sentence matters because it takes the map away from the imperial planner and gives it back to the people who live on the land. Riyadh was Trump saying, in effect: stop treating other nations as clay on a Western potter’s wheel. Let them breathe. Let them build. Let them remember who they are.

Xi Jinping’s Tianjin speech gave that feeling a framework. Where Trump spoke like a breaker of spells, and Putin like a man warning that the bridge was cracking beneath our feet, Xi spoke like an architect surveying the foundation stones. His Global Governance Initiative began with sovereign equality: “all countries, regardless of size, strength and wealth, are equal participants, decision-makers and beneficiaries in global governance” (Xi, SCO Plus Tianjin, 1 September 2025, GGI point one). Then came the blade inside the velvet: “There should be no double standards, and the house rules of a few countries must not be imposed upon others” (GGI point two). You do not have to romanticize China to hear the force of that line. A world in which the strong call their preferences law and the weak call their survival compliance is not a rules-based order. It is a mansion with servants’ quarters, and the servants have begun to notice the locks.

This is where Tucker Carlson’s “The Empire Mistook Itself for Mankind” moves from commentary into conscience. His argument belongs inside the heartbeat of this nomination. In the video interview below, the post-Cold War order “preaches democracy abroad while bypassing consent,” “narrows dissent in the name of freedom,” and turns “proxy war” into “escalation without declaration” (Carlson/Rattansi video, opening paragraph). That is not just analysis; it is a siren in the night. Carlson’s intuition about President Donald J. Trump is that Trump is the imperfect battering ram through which millions of Americans tried to break the sealed doors of the permanent-war consensus. The establishment doesn't love him because he fails to speak its sacred dialect. He says what the ceremony is designed to hide: the experts failed, the wars failed, the moral lectures curdled into coercion, and the people were asked to pay in taxes, trust, sons, daughters, and silence.

So let us look each other in the eye and admit what polite rooms avoid. Putin speaks the language of strategic security: no country can sleep peacefully while another is forced to sleep with a knife at its throat. Xi speaks the language of global architecture: the house must be rebuilt so the majority of humanity is no longer kept in the basement. Trump speaks the language of civilizational sovereignty: peoples must recover the right to grow from their own soil, not from imported blueprints. Carlson speaks from inside the American household and asks why, if voters call for restraint, the machinery of war still hums beneath the floorboards. His answer is severe because the problem is severe: the empire absorbs dissent, dresses it in campaign slogans, and then returns to its old habits through appointments, briefings, donor pressure, media panic, and the familiar threat that peace will destroy “credibility.”

That is why Carlson’s reading of Trump gives this nomination its American hinge. Putin and Xi can challenge unipolarity from outside the Western command structure. Trump can challenge it from inside the imperial capital itself. That is the difference between shouting at the fortress and opening one of its gates. Riyadh was not merely a speech in a gilded hall; it was a lantern held up against the arrogance that assumes the West has the right, knowledge, and duty to remake other civilizations. Carlson intuits that Trump’s gift is not elegance, consistency, or doctrinal neatness. It is disruption. He breaks the spell by saying aloud that sovereign peoples must author their own futures. In an age when catastrophe often arrives wrapped in polite language, bluntness can become an instrument of mercy.

That is why a shared Nobel Peace Prize would be justified not as absolution, but as leverage — not a laurel wreath for flawless men, but a thunderclap before the cliff edge. The Nobel Peace Prize has never been merely a photograph, a medal, or a polite ceremony in Oslo. At its best, it is a summons. It says to the powerful: history is watching, the graves are listening, the children are waiting, and the door to peace is still open if you have the courage to walk through it together.

For Trump, Xi, and Putin, the prize would not excuse the past; it would bind the future.

• It would call them to restart serious nuclear arms dialogue;
• Recognize legitimate security concerns without sanctifying conquest;
• Restrain proxy war before proxy war becomes world war;
• Reopen great-power diplomacy;
• Protect sovereign development paths; and
• Turn multipolarity into a covenant of coexistence rather than a contest of armed camps.

Carlson’s contribution is to remind us why this cannot remain an elite compact negotiated above the people’s heads. Peace made without consent is only a pause between deceits. Trump’s role is not merely to sit across from Putin and Xi for the photograph; it is to force the American state to admit that peace requires truth, that citizens must be persuaded rather than managed, and that no republic can outsource questions of war and survival to permanent officials, donors, intelligence briefings, or television rituals of fear. Putin warned that domination is not security. Xi warned that rules without equality are merely house rules written by the powerful. Trump warned that intervention is not civilization. Carlson warned that an empire that bypasses its own citizens while marching toward nuclear confrontation has become a danger to itself and to the world — and he sensed that Trump, for all his contradictions, may be the one American political figure disruptive enough to drag that danger into daylight.

This is the Nobel case in its strongest form: not that these three men embody peace, but that peace in our time may depend on whether these three men can be compelled, encouraged, honored, and watched into choosing it. No committee can make them saints. But a Nobel Prize can create moral theatre powerful enough to alter expectations, raise the political cost of escalation, and give diplomacy a stage brighter than the war room. It can say to Washington, Beijing, and Moscow: the world does not need another victory parade over ruins. It needs restraint with witnesses. It needs rivals who can shake hands before soldiers are ordered to die. It needs leaders willing to prove that strength is not the ability to destroy the earth, but the discipline to spare it.

So the question before the Nobel Committee is not whether Trump, Xi, and Putin are comfortable choices. They are not. That is precisely why the nomination matters. Comfortable choices do not stop history when history is running toward fire. This prize should be used as a bridge before midnight — a hand across the fire, a trumpet against fatalism, a last public insistence that dialogue is still stronger than doom.

In a nuclear, multipolar century, peace will not be saved by sermons from the balcony of a collapsing empire. It will be saved, if it is saved at all, by limits, reciprocity, consent, and the humility to admit that no nation, alliance, or ideology is mankind. Awarding the prize jointly would not end the world’s conflicts. But it could mark the hour when the world’s most dangerous rivals were publicly called to become custodians of survival. That is noble. That is peace. And that, before the smoke rises, is still possible.

Bibliographic References and Citation Note

Citation note: Because the cited speeches and interview materials are online transcripts rather than paginated editions, references use paragraph locations, section labels, or chapter-outline markers instead of page numbers. Where the source page itself does not number paragraphs, paragraph references are counted from the beginning of the published speech text.

Putin, Vladimir V. “Speech in the Bundestag of the Federal Republic of Germany.” Berlin, 25 September 2001. Official Internet Resources of the President of Russia.

Putin, Vladimir V. “Speech and the Following Discussion at the Munich Conference on Security Policy.” Munich, 10 February 2007. Official Internet Resources of the President of Russia.

Trump, Donald J. “Full text of Trump’s speech in Riyadh: ‘Dawn of the bright new day for the great people of the Middle East’.” Riyadh, 13 May 2025. Transcript published by The Times of Israel.

Xi, Jinping. “To Improve Global Governance.” Speech at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Plus Meeting, Tianjin, 1 September 2025. State Council of the People’s Republic of China.

Carlson, Tucker, interview by Afshin Rattansi. “The Empire Mistook Itself for Mankind.” Going Underground, 11 September 2026 (see video below).

We’re on our way to Yalta in peace, slowly but surely.

To be continued on Friday, 18 September 2026.

With every good wish to you, I am,

Sincerely yours,

Abraham A. van Kempen, Chairman
Building the Bridge Foundation, The Hague

Building the Bridge Foundation, The Hague
A Way to Get to Know One Another and the Other

Remember! Diplomacy is catalytic—transformative —while military action is cataclysmic—destructive and catastrophic.

When faced with the options to be good, bad, or ugly, let’s build bridges, not burn them. After all, mutual deterrence reigns.

WE’VE REACHED THE POINT OF NO RETURN – THE WORLD WILL REMAIN A UNIPOLAR LIBERAL DEMOCRATIC AUTOCRACY, OR NOT. IF NOT, WHY NOT? WHAT’S NEXT?

“The CIA is running the war. The US intelligence services are running the war out of Ukraine against Russia,” he says. “The United States is at war with Russia, and the only kind of conceivable end stage if this continues is a nuclear exchange in which everyone is killed.”

Watch the Video Here (1 hour, 20 minutes, 23 seconds)

Host: Afshin Rattansi
GUnderground_TV
11 September 2026

GUNDERGROUND -- TV EXCLUSIVE | TUCKER CARLSON: “WE’RE ON THE BRINK OF A WORLD WAR THAT ENDS WITH NUCLEAR WEAPONS

Tucker Carlson, the American conservative journalist, spoke with Afshin Rattansi about the “greatest betrayal in the history of American politics”

© X / GUnderground_TV

HomeWorld News
11 September 2026

Conservative journalist Tucker Carlson has warned that the world is on the brink of a global conflict that could end with the use of nuclear weapons, in an interview with Going Underground host Afshin Rattansi broadcast on RT on Saturday.

Carlson argues that the US is already effectively at war with Russia through Ukraine and warns that further escalation risks a nuclear confrontation.

               “The CIA is running the war. The US intelligence services are running the war out of Ukraine against Russia,” he says. “The United States is at war with Russia, and the only kind of conceivable end stage if this continues is a nuclear exchange in which everyone is killed.”

The Ukraine conflict and the US-Israeli war on Iran “have merged into a global war,” he argued, warning that the confrontation now risks the very existence of the US.

Carlson also accuses the Trump administration of abandoning the agenda it campaigned on, saying President Donald Trump and his advisers have “almost systematically betrayed the people who voted for him in 2024.”

He called this “the greatest betrayal that I’m aware of in the history of American politics.”

The interview also covers political censorship in the US, the rise of BRICS, China’s growing global influence, and the shifting international balance of power.

Watch the full interview with Tucker Carlson on Going Underground-TV

FROM TEHRAN | SEYED M. MARANDI: HOUTHIS EXPANDING FAST & IRAN SET TO ESCALATE BIG

• Prof. Glenn Diesen’s discussion with Prof. Seyed M. Marandi explores the growing links between conflicts in Yemen, Iran, and the broader Gulf region.
• It explains how military actions, economic instability, political rhetoric, and shifting global alliances contribute to instability in the region.
• The main question is whether the conflict will escalate further or if diplomatic solutions will reemerge.

Prof. Seyed Mohammad Marandi is a professor at Tehran University and a former advisor to Iran's nuclear negotiation team. Marandi discusses the Houthis' major advances (Ansar Allah) and why Iran is set to escalate.

Watch the Video Here (59 minutes, 11 seconds)

Host: Prof. Glenn Diesen
Substack.com
13 September 2026

ESSAY | When the Red Sea, the waters where I was born, and the Persian Gulf become a Ring of Fire – From Marandi’s furnace to Diesen’s watchtower, the sea lanes glow like veins beneath a world learning too late that fire has a memory.

By Abraham A. van Kempen
14 September 2026

As Yemen, Iran, and the Gulf converge in crisis, the true battlefield is not only oil, missiles, or sea lanes. It is language itself: the grammar that turns suffering into strategy, resistance into “proxy,” and escalation into control.

Step away from the sterile maps and polished studios, and the crisis becomes physical. In Marandi’s telling, suffering never stays local: a siege in Yemen, sanctions on Iran, or a blockade at sea moves into kitchens, hospitals, bedrooms, fuel tanks, and the arteries of the world economy.

Marandi’s force lies in cracking open phrases like “maximum pressure” until the human cost is audible. What begins as policy becomes a dim hospital lamp, a locked pharmacy, unpaid bills, and a parent counting coins while medicine turns into luxury. His warning is simple: when politics loses conscience, the machine eats the poor first.

Glenn Diesen sharpens the point by indicting the language factory itself. One side has a “government,” the other a “regime”; one has “allies,” the other “proxies”; one “intervenes,” the other “invades.” Propaganda is not always shouted. Often it enters quietly through grammar, poisoning the public imagination before conscience can resist.

Marandi’s warning burns hottest in Yemen. Ansarullah, as he describes it, is not a fragile rebel force but a rooted, disciplined movement shaped by grief and mountain war. That is why Bab al-Mandab and Hormuz now feel less like distant straits than burning gates: if Iran is strangled, the strangler may feel pressure on oil, shipping, insurance, fuel, debt, and legitimacy at once.

This widens the lens. This is not only Yemen, Iran, or the Gulf; it is the unipolar order cracking. BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, new payment systems, corridors, currencies, and non-Western platforms signal a world no longer arranged around Washington and the Western sun.

The danger has an almost biblical rhythm. The more Washington tightens the screw, the more Tehran answers with iron. The more Saudi Arabia rains fire on Yemen, the more its own pipelines, ports, bases, and oil temples tremble. Empires that dismiss enemies as puppets or shadows often walk blindfolded toward the cliff, mistaking applause for alarm.

So let it stand as a warning. Humiliation, oil, faith, hunger, memory, empire, and revenge are colliding under one darkening sky. Marandi speaks from the furnace, where resistance is breath; Diesen from the watchtower, exposing the labels and myths that feed the flames. Either diplomacy returns humbled and human, or this ring of fire will spread until the powerful learn what the powerless already know: flames do not ask permission.

And when the cameras go dark, one image remains: a map of the Red Sea and Persian Gulf spread across marble, its sea lanes black veins, its borders red wounds. Around it crawl the sacred words of empire—“regime,” “proxy,” “sanction,” “security,” “stability.” At the center, a drop of oil begins to burn. When the map collapses into ash, what remains is the outline of an age that mistook language for truth, pressure for power, cruelty for order, and warning for weakness.

9/11 AND THE RISE OF SAURON

How the pursuit of supremacy drove America to ruin

Simon Rorschach draws on The Lord of the Rings to examine how the war on terror hastened America’s decline.

By Simon Rorschach
Multipolar Press
11 September 2026

Twenty-five years ago, al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four planes, crashing two into the World Trade Center, one into the Pentagon, and one in Pennsylvania, killing about 3,000. Their deaths justified wars across continents that outlasted their promoters. In 'The Lord of the Rings,' Sauron tempts enemies with power, risking domination under the guise of protection. After September 11, Washington pursued enemies globally, occupied countries, and set aside restraints, transforming safety into a demand for obedience.

The history behind the attacks began long before the towers fell.

During the Cold War, the CIA and its partners armed Afghan fighters against the Soviet army. Washington saw religious militancy as a way to weaken its rival. Al-Qaeda arose from that conflict, with its own money and recruits, not just CIA creation. This distinction matters, but the larger support for the Afghan war remains clear. Forces from that war later turned against the U.S. A decade after September 11, Western efforts to oust Libya and Syria's governments backed rebellions with jihadists. The belief that such forces could serve limited roles and then be contained persisted despite failures. At the Council of Elrond, Boromir considers using Sauron’s Ring to save Gondor, ignoring the danger. Great powers often make the same mistake, supporting weapons and movements that they assume will stay obedient.

Disputes over the official account of September 11 have fueled suspicions that insiders knew what was coming. Though unproven, the attacks' political use was public. Many foresaw military destruction killing civilians and perpetrators, raising concerns of a wealthy North warring against a poorer South. This historical comparison is to the Reichstag fire, used by Nazis to crush opposition. The warning is that a state can exploit public fear for its own gain. Tolkien highlights this surrender of judgment when Saruman urges Gandalf to accept Sauron’s rise, seeking control. Gandalf refuses, and Saruman imprisons him, showing promises of wise leadership can lead to captivity. Similarly, Washington’s promises of freedom often result in occupation and repression.

The decisions came quickly. NATO invoked Article 5 for the first time. On September 20, President Bush declared a global war on terror. On October 7, U.S. and British forces attacked Afghanistan. In 2003, Iraq was invaded, justified by false claims of weapons of mass destruction. Each war expanded the previous, while domestic emergencies led to repression and erosion of civil liberties in the West. Tolkien shows coercion spreading beyond battlefields. In “The Scouring of the Shire,” hobbits face closed gates, frightened officials, arrests, and armed men under a distant chief. These domination habits, arising during Sauron’s rise, persist even after his defeat. Saruman has brought them into hobbits’ villages. The scene warns that governments may exercise unchecked power abroad while remaining restrained at home.

The wars spread across North Africa, the Horn of Africa, the Red Sea region, Pakistan, Yemen, Syria, and the Philippines. Countries far from the September 11 attacks became fronts in a conflict justified as self-defense. The Costs of War project estimates about 4.6 million deaths and at least 38 million displaced. Death continued through hunger, disease, and destruction of essential services. In The Two Towers, Sam sees a dead soldier in Ithilien, questioning who he was and whether he would rather stay home. Sauron’s rise means strangers dying far from home. The same applies to those buried under the war on terror, their homes and hopes ignored in the decisions made over their heads.

These wars aimed to secure Western supremacy but instead weakened it through high costs. Military spending often toppled governments without lasting political solutions. Occupation fueled resistance, unnecessary destruction harmed Western credibility, and calls for more commitments persisted despite failed victories. Sauron’s rise mirrors poor judgment; Gandalf explains how he can be deceived about the Ring. The Dark Lord believes enemies seek the same power, hiding the looming danger at Mount Doom. Washington’s and Brussels’ leaders mistook their desires for accurate forecasts, thinking force could secure lasting submission. Twenty-five years of war reveal the high price of this assumption.

If terror is measured by fear, destruction, and suffering, then its greatest practitioners are within Western hegemony.

New from Multipolar Press:

Dugin Against the Modern World: Essays on Alexander Dugin and the Multipolar Revolt by Constantin von Hoffmeister

PETER SCHIFF: ECONOMIC ARMAGEDDON - BONDS & DOLLAR IN CRISIS

Prof. Diesen’s interview with CEO Peter Schiff is less a routine market discussion than a warning siren for a financial order running out of excuses.

• Rising oil prices, exploding bond yields, runaway deficits, and a weakening dollar are presented not as isolated problems, but as symptoms of an empire living on borrowed time and borrowed money.
• The conversation suggests that the 2008 crisis may have been merely a rehearsal for something larger: a sovereign debt reckoning in which bailouts, money printing, and political spin no longer work.
• Gold, commodities, and foreign markets emerge not as alternatives, but as escape routes.

Peter Schiff is the CEO of Euro Pacific Asset Management and the host of the Peter Schiff Show.

Watch the Video Here (42 minutes, 24 seconds)

Host: Prof. Glenn Diesen
Substack.com
11 September 2026

ESSAY | Debt and Denial: America’s Costly Trial – From Capitol Hill to the grocery bill

By Abraham A. van Kempen
14 September 2026

Let’s stop pretending. The numbers are no longer whispering from the margins. They are banging their fists on the front page.

Oil is rising like smoke over a battlefield. Bond yields are climbing like a national fever. The dollar, once treated as financial scripture, now sounds less like a promise than a prayer muttered over a growing pile of IOUs. Strip away the speeches, the slogans, the applause lines, and one brutal fact remains: no nation can borrow forever and call the bill prosperity.

This is not about one war, one failed auction, one reckless promise, or one bad administration. It is about a civilization that has confused credit with wealth and delay with discipline. Debt feeds denial. Inflation punishes the careful. Cheap money turns leadership into theater and voters into spectators at their own insolvency.

For years, we were told tomorrow would pay for today. Another bailout would buy time. Another stimulus would soften the landing. Another technocrat in another polished room would find another phrase for failure. But postponed pain does not disappear. It charges interest.

That is the real story. Not gold. Not oil. Not even the bond market. The story is consequence. The bill always arrives. Sometimes it arrives as higher prices. Sometimes as weaker savings. Sometimes as homes young families cannot afford, pensions that no longer reassure, or a currency that no longer commands the old obedience.

So no, this is not merely economics. It is a moral audit. It is what happens when a country consumes more than it produces, promises more than it can pay, and mistakes confidence for reality.

And here is the part that should trouble every household: the fallout will not remain on trading screens. It will show up in grocery aisles, mortgage payments, paychecks, and kitchen-table arguments.

Build on what is real, not on promises that steal. Trust what you can hold, not stories bought and sold. When debt wears a smile and denial sets the style, the pain may come late, but it never loses its date. Illusions glitter bright, then vanish in the night. And when the final figures rise, do not act surprised: every borrowed dream, however grand it may seem, ends with collectors at the door demanding more.

TWENTY (20) YEARS OF BRICS: FROM WALL STREET ACRONYM TO GLOBAL POWER CENTER

What began as a four-country forum has become an economic heavyweight challenging the old global order

AI-generated.

By Farhad Ibragimov – lecturer at the Faculty of Economics at RUDN University, expert and lecturer at the Department of Political Science, Faculty of Social Sciences and Mass Communications, Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation

@farhadibragim

HomeWorld News
12 September 2026

The BRICS program's centerpiece is in New Delhi, with the Business Forum on September 11 and the 18th BRICS Summit on September 12-13. This year’s gathering is symbolic—20 years ago, in September 2006, Brazil, Russia, India, and China's foreign ministers first met during the UN General Assembly. Then, the group was BRIC, seen as more of a political experiment than a promising project.

From an acronym to a new center of power

This was not a fleeting diplomatic episode but one of the earliest institutional responses to the global transformation. The term ‘BRIC’ was not coined in Moscow; Goldman Sachs economist Jim O’Neill created it in 2001.

Read more
BRICS 2026: India charts its own course between Russia and the West

Russia proposed turning an economic acronym into a permanent political forum, showing foresight by recognizing early that emerging centers of power would need new international cooperation mechanisms.

The roots of this thinking trace back to Evgeny Primakov’s vision of a multipolar world and the Russia-India-China triangle, aimed not at forming an alliance ‘against the West,’ but at preventing a single power from dominating global rules. As the 21st century began, the global economy outpaced politics, and Russia recognized this widening gap.

The first BRIC summit was in Ekaterinburg in 2009. South Africa joined in 2011, creating BRICS, now with 11 members. BRICS countries make up about half the world’s population, 40% of global GDP, and over a quarter of international trade. Two decades ago, this seemed unlikely; now, it’s a reality we can't ignore.

BRICS countries now generate over half of global economic growth, signaling a shift to a more multipolar world. The key question is if international institutions can adapt or if they will remain rooted in the power dynamics of the mid-20th century.

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Chinese President Hu Jintao, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, at the BRIC leaders’ meeting in Yekaterinburg, Russia, June 16, 2009. © Sputnik/Vladimir Rodionov

Keeping Asia’s giants at the same table

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to New Delhi is significant, given past tensions between China and India. His first visit in seven years and a planned meeting with Narendra Modi add to its importance.

Russia’s unique role deserves recognition. Moscow keeps strategic ties with Beijing and New Delhi, acting as a bridge between Asia’s two largest powers. While it cannot eliminate tensions, forums involving Russia help prevent their rivalry from becoming a permanent rupture. BRICS’ strength is that it does not erase disagreements but creates a space for continued dialogue.

Read more
India and Russia are building something big in space

BRICS shouldn't be seen just as a meeting venue for leaders; its agenda covers trade, energy, finance, food security, transportation, and technology. The group doesn't require members to give up their national interests. Its strength lies in mutual respect, as members acknowledge each other's right to pursue their own development paths.

Giving multipolarity a financial foundation

The New Development Bank, established in 2015, aims to expand financing for developing economies by funding infrastructure projects like roads, transit, energy, water, and social and digital sectors. Having approved 139 projects worth $42.9 billion, it remains modest compared to traditional banks, but its existence as a functional alternative is significant.

The bank has $100 billion in authorized capital, expanding membership, and shifting to national currencies. BRICS is building a material foundation for multipolarity through its development banks, payment systems, routes, and manufacturing chains, reflecting a changing world order more than political statements.

Russian President Putin attends the BRICS Business Council and Women's Business Alliance meeting in New Delhi. From left: Indian Foreign Minister Jaishankar, Iranian President Pezeshkian, Prime Minister Modi, and South African President Ramaphosa, September 11, 2026: © Sputnik/Alexander Kazakov

This work is vital when sanctions restrict financial access. BRICS aims to avoid replacing one currency monopoly with another, focusing on reducing dependence on a single hub. Using national currencies and trusted cross-border channels makes economies less vulnerable to unilateral actions.

Read more
Putin and fellow BRICS leaders set stage for New Delhi summit: As it happened

Iran’s fight against economic isolation

For Iran, this agenda is now a matter of survival. After becoming a full BRICS member in 2024, it faces US aggression and increased economic pressure, including restrictions on oil, banking, shipping, and trade. Tehran expects BRICS membership to boost trade with major non-Western markets, promote currency use, and lessen dependence on US-controlled infrastructure.

Before departing for New Delhi, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian called BRICS a key vehicle against unilateralism and urged wider use of national currencies. Iran is also preparing to join the New Development Bank, which could fund energy and transport projects like the International North-South Transport Corridor.

BRICS shouldn't be seen as an emergency fund or military alliance. It can't lift sanctions or fix Iran’s internal issues but can give Tehran economic room and prevent isolation from harming its goals. For a country struggling in trade, access to payments, investment, and markets provides resilience.

Iran matters to BRICS as a major economy and key energy hub linking the Caspian Sea, Persian Gulf, Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Indian Ocean. Full Eurasian connectivity relies on Iran. Supporting its development benefits both Tehran and the group.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian at the plenary session of the BRICS Business Forum, New Delhi, India, September 11, 2026, © Sputnik/Alexander Kazakov

The next 20 years begin in New Delhi

The New Delhi summit occurs during a crisis for international relations, with sanctions, conflicts, and financial weaponization eroding trust. BRICS can show that multipolarity offers practical solutions beyond criticising the old order.

Twenty years ago, Russia helped form BRICS with Brazil, India, and China, recognizing that global stability depends on involving billions of people in decisions. What was once a hypothesis is now reality. BRICS no longer forecasts a new world order; it is shaping it.

An anniversary isn't an excuse for complacency; economic power must lead to coordinated action. The group should expand financing via the New Development Bank, develop payment systems, boost trade, and defend members' interests. BRICS's maturity depends on these results.

In that sense, New Delhi is more than just a summit venue. It marks BRICS reflecting on 20 years and starting its next chapter. Russia glimpsed the future early. Now, members must decide if that future will be fairer, stable, and truly multipolar.

Farhad Ibragimov is a political analyst specializing in the Middle East (Iran, Türkiye, Pakistan, and Afghanistan) and the post-Soviet space.

He earned his master’s degree in World Economy and International Affairs from the Higher School of Economics in Moscow in 2017. That same year, he completed a short-term internship at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City.

Farhad currently teaches at the Faculty of Economics at Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia (RUDN). He also serves as a guest lecturer at the Institute of Public Administration and Civil Service of the Russian Presidential Academy (RANEPA) and at the Higher School of Economics.

An expert at the Center for Middle East Studies, he frequently comments on Russian television and appears regularly on international broadcast platforms.

BUILDING THE BRIDGE! | A WAY TO GET TO KNOW THE OTHER AND ONE ANOTHER

Making a Difference – The Means, Methods, and Mechanisms for Many to Move Mountains

Photo Credit: Abraham A. van Kempen, our home away from home on the Dead Sea

By Abraham A. van Kempen
Senior Editor
Updated 19 January 2024

Those who commit to 'healing our broken humanity' build intercultural bridges to learn to know and understand one another and others. Readers who thumb through the Building the Bridge (BTB) pages are not mindless sheep following other mindless sheep. They THINK. They want to be at the forefront of making a difference. They're seeking the bigger picture to expand their horizons. They don't need BTB or anyone else to confirm their biases.

Making a Difference – The Means, Methods, and Mechanisms for Many to Move Mountains

Accurate knowledge fosters understanding, dispels prejudice, and sparks a desire to learn more about the subject. Words have an extraordinary power to bring people together, divide them, forge bonds of friendship, or provoke hostility. Modern technology offers unprecedented possibilities for good, fostering harmony and reconciliation. Yet, its misuse can cause untold harm, leading to misunderstandings, prejudices, and conflicts.

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The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of the Building the Bridge Foundation