Pivotal Power

June 18, 2009
House made of BRICs

Leaders from Brazil, Russia, China and India at the first BRIC summit.

This week, Brazil, Russia, India and China — dubbed the BRIC nations — held their first leaders’ summit in St. Petersburg. The web of bilateral connections among these four emerging powers is intense, with presidential summits a routine occurence. This quadrilateral format was the first for heads of state, however.

Perhaps predictably for a group that has such divergent interests, not much concrete came of the first BRIC meeting. Nevertheless, surely all the leaders – especially Russia — enjoyed the symbolism of the moment.

It doesn’t particularly matter, but I can’t help but think that the motivation for this meeting must have originated during the Bush Administration, which all but dared these countries to unite to oppose American interests. As it happens, they made some vague calls for a monetary system diversified away from the dollar, but that was about it.

These pivotal powers are at a privileged point in their evolution — they are not wealthy or influential enough for the world’s citizens to expect them to solve serious problems. And yet they are increasingly powerful and can increasingly demand, and deserve, a greater voice in global decision-making.

But this time will pass and, because they are emerging or re-emerging in an era when technology has made this planet very small, their summits will soon be marked by protestors demanding all variety of actions and commentators expressing disappointment that nothing got done, again. They would do well to take bold responsibility for the common good before that time comes. For starters, let’s see if China and India agree to targets for emissions reductions later this year in Copenhagen…

- Nina Hachigian

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6 comments

#6

07/02/2009 :: 04:58:26 PM
tip deegan Says:

We forget that for the hundred thousand high IQ IT workers in Bangalore, India, there are a billion still back on the farm. The Congress Party easily took back the government a few years ago by promising to pay more attention to the rural folks. Picture 800,000 million here in the US living in trailer camps between the Allegenies and the Sierra Nevadas. Makes progress a two step forward, one step backwards tango. I hear tell that China has the same type of demographics, and gather that beyond coastal Brazil and Russia west of Moscow live can be basic. No doubt the BRICs will have there day in the sun but it may take a while.

#5

06/23/2009 :: 03:08:22 AM
Andrew Says:

The climate change problem arose because of Western greed. India and China even now are not creating the amount of C02 per capita as much as these western countries have been for more than a century. So it is upon us to stop producing so much of C02, before asking developing countries to cut down. Secondly,BRIC countries will become a powerful Bloc in 1-2 decades. 2009 is the year of inception give them 20 years and see they will surpass the G7.

#4

06/19/2009 :: 10:57:30 PM
The Melancholy Poet Says:

In the previous illustration…
(concerning the ‘Eccentricity of Ellipse’)
in the prior written text…
this following Definition of Reference was the inspiration for the intended meaning (as used) and was used as the foundational base of the illustration when considered in a
semi-abstract/semi-concrete way:

“In mathematics, the eccentricity (of an Ellipse)…is a parameter associated with every conic section.”

(Particularly, this sentence…which may be applied at many psychological levels):

“It (the Eccentricity) can be thought of as a measure of how much the conic section deviates from being circular.”

(And, this):

“In particular,
1.–The eccentricity of a circle is zero.
2.–The eccentricity of an (non-circle) ellipse is greater than zero but less than 1.
3.–The eccentricity of a parabola is 1.
4.–The eccentricity of a hyperbola is greater than 1.”

#2…was used to work into the Measurements Theme:
some leeway (for allowing some “form” of number–or aspect of numerics–to be presented as “possible”–even between 0 and 1–…for consideration when this “fine-tuning” concerns “adjusting” Forms into more “accurate measurments” as can be denoted in the Idea of a Circle/Sphere…as previously applied.

#3

06/19/2009 :: 10:31:23 PM
The Melancholy Poet Says:

If the Eccentricity Of The Ellipse (by illustration) may be factored into accurate Measurements of the Spheres of Civilized Society which act, by Natural Force, as anthropomorphically Geometrical Definitions concerning the dimensions of those Personal
Lenses through which we gaze upon the Affairs Of Life–as they course (cell-like) on Graphs of Coordinated Circumstances as being able to, by presence of grid boundaries, define “precision-wise” or, in a sense, “fine tune” the placements or coordinates of varying subjects upon any Round Table of the Infinite Symbolisms involved behind the Discussions which are not, necessarily, rendered mutually exclusive to the innate natural geometry entwined always in the Negotiations of the Spheres of Other Parts Of The World (Spheres criss-crossing the World like Clouds across lines of Latitude and Longitude)…then, there might be made of some use: Coordinated Cylindrical Channels Of Negotiations regarding varying Economical Concerns which will not, by their nature, impede or disrupt the Ongoing Scenarios involved in Countries that are, at present, seemingly opposed to the ideological freedoms inherent in the Underlying Necessity Of All Things which have not been prevented through foresight or were allowed to come into Existence permissively and through which the Previously Unforeseen Causes were rendered into Present Effects not, necessarily, determined by Human Will but by Force of the subtle Determinations of Prior Causes which were not rendered less or more permissible by virtue of advance foresight not having engrafted a partof that Previous Awareness onto the Schematics of the up-to-date Intellectuallized animated holographic ‘blueprint-like’ Courses of Events.

#2

06/19/2009 :: 07:39:18 PM
The Melancholy Poet Says:

Perhaps, something can be said for making an observational adjustment, even from a distance, when meditating: that (philosophically), the Idea of BRIC ‘Pharaohs’, perhaps, should be perused (in ‘cylindrical’ fashion) into possible eventual holographic ramifications of the internal precepts of the main concepts of ‘Overseers’ even suggesting, sight unseen, that others of the World be rendered excluded or be sent out to their own barren fields themselves to glean straw, by night, so that They might come to be able to make their Web Quota of Bilateral Symbolisms which might end up connecting Quadrilaterally Formatted Economical Bricks, by day, by way of the labors derived from having allowed to be Built a vast Pyramid of That-Which-Would- Not-Be-Feasible to Other Populations of this World who must yet live on it with ‘Pharaohs’ and ‘Overseers’ (…is there, again, a kind of numeric and alphabetic symbolism involved in the intricacies of any Pyramid?).

#1

06/19/2009 :: 10:22:35 AM
shiva iyer Says:

Yes, India and China would agree for per-capita emission to the western levels. Absolutely

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Nina Hachigian is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and the co-author of “The Next American Century: How the U.S. Can Thrive as Other Powers Rise.” She has worked on the staff of the National Security Council in the White House and been a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation. She specializes in U.S.-China relations and great power relationships, multilateral institutions and U.S. foreign policy.

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