BRICS and the Club of Frenemies: Can Rivals Reshape the World Order?

BRICS Wants to Reshape the World — But Its Members Cannot Always Agree With One Another

BRICS wants to reshape the world. It increasingly presents itself as "a vehicle for a more representative and multipolar international order," one in which the institutions and rules of global governance give greater weight to the countries of the "Global South."

What began as a grouping of Brazil, Russia, India and China, later, in 2011, joined by South Africa, has now expanded dramatically.
Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates joined in the 2024 expansion.
Indonesia became a full member in 2025, bringing the grouping to eleven members.

That expansion gives BRICS enormous geographical reach. It brings together-

Major Asian powers: India, Indonesia, and China.
African states: South Africa, Egypt, and Ethiopia.
Middle Eastern energy producers: Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the UAE.
Latin American heavyweight: Brazil
Russia, a "transcontinental country" spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. Despite the fact that most of its territory lies in Asia, because the majority of its population and major political centres are located in European Russia, the country has historically identified with both European and Eurasian dimensions.

It also gives the grouping a remarkable concentration of population, energy resources, strategic geography and economic weight. Yet expansion has created "an awkward paradox." The larger BRICS becomes, the more difficult it may become to agree on what it actually wants to do.
The problem is not simply that BRICS contains countries with different political systems or different economic priorities. The deeper problem is that some of its members are strategic competitors, geopolitical rivals and, in some cases, active adversaries.

India and China compete for influence across Asia while remaining locked in an unresolved border dispute.
Saudi Arabia and Iran have spent decades competing for regional influence in West Asia and have supported opposing actors across several conflicts.
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are increasingly pursuing divergent regional and economic strategies despite being close Gulf partners.
Egypt and Ethiopia have been locked in a bitter dispute over "the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam" on the Nile.
Iran and the UAE have now experienced a dramatic deterioration in relations.
Even apparently less consequential disagreements—such as the maritime friction between China and Indonesia—show how difficult it is to construct a single political community from such a diverse collection of states.

This raises a fundamental question:

"How can BRICS become an influential force in world politics when some of its own members do not see eye to eye?"

The answer begins with understanding the rivalries inside the grouping.

India and China: The Defining Strategic Rivalry Inside BRICS

The most consequential rivalry inside BRICS is arguably the competition between India and China.
These are two Asian giants, two of the world's most populous countries and two major economies whose "strategic ambitions" increasingly overlap. They are also Himalayan neighbours separated by one of the world's most difficult and contested frontiers.

India officially describes its border with China as approximately 3,488 kilometres long. The frontier stretches across Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh. Much of it is not a mutually demarcated international boundary but the disputed Line of Actual Control, or LAC.
This is not merely a "cartographic disagreement." The border dispute has produced war, military confrontation, infrastructure competition and fatalities.
In 1962, India and China fought a full-scale war in the Himalayas. Indian losses were severe.
That arrangement was badly damaged in June 2020 when Indian and Chinese troops fought a violent confrontation in the Galwan Valley in eastern Ladakh. Both sides suffered troop casualties, but the important development was that the significance of Galwan went beyond the immediate clash. It demonstrated that the border question remained capable of producing deadly confrontation even after decades of confidence-building mechanisms. The border never became a settled issue after a war, military clashes, and the development of mechanisms to prevent another major conflict, while continuing to disagree over territory.
For India, this is why the border is not simply another item on a long diplomatic agenda. New Delhi has repeatedly linked the broader normalization of India–China relations to peace and tranquillity along the frontier.
Beijing has generally preferred to prevent the boundary question from overwhelming the wider relationship. Its argument has been that the two countries should manage their differences while continuing cooperation in trade, economics and global affairs.
The difference in approach is important. China tends to separate the border dispute from the larger relationship; India increasingly argues that the two cannot be separated indefinitely.
This rivalry, however, goes far beyond the Himalayas. Even if the boundary dispute were eventually resolved, India and China would remain competitors in Asia. They compete for investment, manufacturing, infrastructure, technology, supply chains, strategic partnerships, diplomatic influence and economic access.

Both want a larger role in shaping Asia's future.
Both seek greater influence across the Global South.
Both want stronger global footprints.

This competition does not automatically produce military conflict. Unlike a disputed mountain ridge, an investment project or a diplomatic initiative does not necessarily create a battlefield, but strategic competition can still obstruct cooperation.
And yet, there is an important counterpoint.

Both governments understand that an uncontrolled confrontation between Asia's two giants would carry enormous costs. Chinese President Xi Jinping has repeatedly used the metaphor of the “dragon and elephant” to describe China and India, arguing that the two should cooperate rather than fight. The metaphor predates Xi and has appeared repeatedly in Chinese diplomacy, but it remains a useful expression of Beijing's argument that China and India have common interests in development and global stability.

That recognition matters; now the question is-

whether diplomatic recognition of mutual importance can overcome the structural forces pushing the two powers toward competition.

For BRICS, this is crucial. If India and China can compartmentalize their rivalry, BRICS can function. If their bilateral competition becomes inseparable from every major BRICS decision, the organization could become paralyzed by its own internal power struggle.

Iran and Saudi Arabia: The Rivalry That Turned West Asia Into a Battlefield

If India and China represent BRICS' most important strategic rivalry, Saudi Arabia and Iran represent perhaps its most complicated regional rivalry.
Saudi Arabia is a leading Sunni-majority Arab power. Iran is a predominantly Shia-majority Persian state. "Religious identity" matters, but reducing the rivalry to Sunni versus Shia would be misleading.
The competition is also about "regional leadership," security, ideology, state power, military influence and the political future of the Middle East.
Academic research has repeatedly shown that "sectarian identity" is only one component of the rivalry. The struggle has also been driven by-

competing geopolitical ambitions,
the aftermath of the Iraq War,
the Arab Spring,
state collapse and civil wars,
Iran's regional networks,
Saudi security concerns and
the broader contest for regional influence.

The historical roots of Sunni–Shia division go back to the dispute over succession following the death of Prophet Muhammad. But the modern Saudi–Iranian geopolitical rivalry is much newer. Its contemporary form developed through-

the interaction of revolutionary Iran,
the Saudi monarchy,
regional power vacuums and
conflicts across the Middle East.

Yemen became one of the clearest examples.
The Houthi movement emerged from northern Yemen and belongs to the "Zaydi Shia tradition." Iran has provided the Houthis with political, military and material support, although the Houthis are not simply an Iranian-controlled organization and possess their own political objectives.
On the opposing side, Saudi Arabia intervened militarily in Yemen in 2015 in support of the internationally recognized Yemeni government.
It is therefore more accurate to describe Yemen not as a country simply divided into “a Houthi north and a Saudi-backed south,” but as a fragmented conflict involving the Houthis, the internationally recognized government, "the Southern Transitional Council" and other local and regional actors. Saudi Arabia and the UAE have themselves supported different forces within the anti-Houthi camp.
That distinction became particularly important in recent years. After the 2022 UN-brokered truce reduced large-scale fighting, Yemen entered a prolonged period of uneasy calm rather than a genuine political settlement. The wider regional crisis following the Gaza war subsequently contributed to "renewed instability."
By September 2026, the situation has deteriorated dramatically again. Houthi forces have launched attacks against Saudi territory and infrastructure, while Saudi forces have intensified strikes in Yemen. The fighting has also moved closer to the strategically vital "Bab al-Mandab Strait," raising concerns well beyond the Middle East because the waterway links the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden and is central to international maritime trade.
Recent attacks have targeted Saudi energy infrastructure and cities, while the Houthi advance toward the Red Sea coast has added another layer of danger to international shipping.
This is particularly important for the global economy because the rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia is no longer confined to political influence, but has increasingly intersected with oil, shipping, maritime chokepoints and global energy security.

But the Saudi–Iran Rivalry Has Now Become More Direct

For years, the Saudi–Iran confrontation could largely be described as a shadow war—a competition fought through partners, proxies, political networks and regional allies.
That description has become increasingly inadequate in 2026.
The current U.S.–Iran war and its regional spillover have brought direct attacks involving Iran and Gulf states into the open. These developments create a particularly difficult problem for BRICS, as Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates are BRICS members. So the moment one BRICS member attacks another BRICS member, the organization cannot simply pretend that the conflict does not exist. This is "BRICS's central paradox."

Saudi Arabia and the UAE: When Partners Become Competitors

The Saudi–UAE relationship presents a different kind of rivalry.
Unlike Saudi Arabia and Iran, these two countries are not ideological enemies.

Both are Arab Gulf monarchies.
Both are Sunni-majority states.
Both have deep economic ties.
Both have historically cooperated on regional security and share concerns about Iranian influence.

Their rulers also developed close personal relations.
"Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman"—widely known as MBS—developed a close relationship with "UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan," or MBZ. MBZ was widely regarded as an important mentor and influence on MBS during the latter's rise. But now, due to some strategic interests have increasingly diverged. Yemen is the clearest example.
Saudi Arabia and the UAE entered the Yemen war as coalition partners in 2015. Yet they gradually developed different priorities.
Saudi Arabia generally sought to preserve a unified Yemeni state and support the internationally recognized government, but the UAE developed strong relationships with southern Yemeni actors, most importantly "the Southern Transitional Council," which advocates greater southern autonomy or independence. This meant that Saudi Arabia and the UAE could support the same broad anti-Houthi camp while backing different forces within it.
Eventually, the disagreement became open confrontation. In December 2025, Saudi-led forces conducted an airstrike on the port of Mukalla, saying that foreign military support intended for UAE-backed southern separatists had arrived there. Riyadh subsequently demanded the withdrawal of UAE forces from Yemen; in response, the UAE announced the withdrawal of its remaining forces.
This was not simply a tactical disagreement. It exposed a deeper strategic divergence between two countries that had previously been seen as close partners.

Why Are Saudi Arabia and the UAE Competing?

One reason is leadership.
Saudi Arabia sees itself as the natural political and economic heavyweight of the Arab world. The UAE, meanwhile, has demonstrated that a smaller state can acquire disproportionate regional influence through finance, logistics, ports, aviation, diplomacy, technology and strategic partnerships.

So, in the first instance, the UAE does not want its foreign policy to be dictated by Riyadh.
The second reason is economics. For years, Saudi Arabia and the UAE cooperated within the oil system, but they also disagreed over production quotas and the appropriate management of oil supply. In 2026, this competition reached at the level of "institutional disagreement", and the UAE announced that it would leave OPEC and OPEC+ effective 1 May 2026, citing its own long-term strategic and energy interests. The decision was widely interpreted as another sign of growing divergence between Abu Dhabi and Riyadh, although the UAE itself presented the move primarily as a sovereign economic and energy-policy decision.
The third factor is economic competition. Dubai has established itself as one of the world's leading hubs for aviation, tourism, finance, logistics, real estate and international business. Saudi Arabia now wants to build its own global economic hubs under "Vision 2030." That creates competition in sectors ranging from tourism and aviation to finance, logistics, technology and entertainment.
And there is a fourth arena: Africa. Saudi Arabia and the UAE have developed different relationships with competing actors in Sudan's civil war. Saudi Arabia has backed "Sudan's armed forces," while the UAE has been accused of supporting the Rapid Support Forces—an allegation Abu Dhabi strongly denies.

So even when Riyadh and Abu Dhabi remain partners, they increasingly behave like partners who are also competitors. That is precisely the kind of relationship that makes BRICS unusual.

Egypt and Ethiopia: A BRICS Dispute Over a Dam

Then there is Africa's most important BRICS rivalry: Egypt and Ethiopia.
Unlike the India–China rivalry, this is not primarily about borders. Unlike the Saudi–Iran rivalry, it is not primarily ideological. It is about water.

The dispute centres on the Nile and "the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, or GERD."
The Nile flows northward from northeastern Africa toward the Mediterranean. Ethiopia is located upstream in the Nile Basin, while Egypt lies downstream.
For Egypt, the Nile is the foundation of civilization, agriculture and water security. It remains overwhelmingly the country's principal freshwater resource.
For Ethiopia, the Nile is also a "development opportunity." In 2011, Ethiopia began construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the "Blue Nile", the main tributary of white Nile, which is the headstream of the Nile River and traces its origin from Lake Victoria, in the Benishangul-Gumuz region.
The project was designed primarily for hydroelectric power generation. The Ethiopian authorities expect it to dramatically increase electricity availability and support national development. The dam's reservoir capacity is officially listed at approximately 74 billion cubic metres.
For Ethiopia, GERD is much more than infrastructure. It became a national symbol. The project was originally estimated at roughly $5 billion, and Ethiopia mobilized an extensive domestic fundraising campaign. Citizens were encouraged to buy bonds, state employees were required to contribute a month's salary in some phases of the campaign, and fundraising extended into the Ethiopian diaspora. Academic research describes the project as an important "nationalist symbol of Ethiopian self-reliance and development, " which explains why the dam carries such emotional significance inside Ethiopia.
But Cairo sees the same structure through a very different lens. Egypt's concern is not that Ethiopia wants electricity. Egypt's concern is what happens to the Nile's flow during the filling and operation of a huge upstream reservoir, especially during prolonged drought.
The question therefore becomes one of upstream development versus downstream water security.
Egypt has pursued diplomacy and international negotiations to secure rules governing the dam's filling and long-term operation. The dispute has also attracted the attention of outside powers, including the United States. Ethiopia, however, has continued to advance the project.
This is why the GERD dispute is so important strategically. It involves not merely a dam but the larger principle of "transboundary water governance."
The Nile is shared by multiple states. Decisions taken upstream can have consequences hundreds or thousands of kilometres downstream. In that situation, water scarcity can be more politically explosive than almost any other resource.
Former Egyptian President "Anwar Sadat" famously warned that water could be the issue capable of taking Egypt to war. The quotation is frequently paraphrased as a warning that only water—specifically the Nile—could bring Egypt into war. Whether or not one treats the statement as a precise policy doctrine, it captures the extraordinary political importance attached to the Nile in Egypt.
For BRICS, this creates another problem when Egypt and Ethiopia are sitting at the same table in BRICS while facing one another across one of Africa's most consequential water disputes.

The Rivalries Do Not Stop There

The internal tensions within BRICS extend beyond the four major cases. When the further dimensions open, starting with Iran and the UAE's own Gulf rivalry. That relationship has deteriorated dramatically during the 2026 regional war. In August, the UAE suspended all trade, commercial exchanges and financial transactions with Iran following missile incidents that Abu Dhabi attributed to Iran; Tehran denied responsibility for the missile launches.
This is particularly significant because the UAE had previously been an important commercial gateway for Iranian trade.
The deterioration therefore represents not merely a diplomatic disagreement but a direct blow to economic interdependence between two BRICS members.
There are also tensions between China and Indonesia.

However, these require careful wording. China and Indonesia do not have a conventional territorial dispute over the Natuna Islands. Indonesia maintains sovereignty over the "Natuna Islands," and both governments have often emphasized that there is no formal territorial dispute between them.
The problem concerns China's expansive maritime claims and the overlap between "China's nine-dash-line" claims and Indonesia's Exclusive Economic Zone in the North Natuna Sea.
Indonesia therefore officially avoids describing itself as a claimant in the South China Sea territorial disputes, while simultaneously rejecting the legal basis of China's overlapping claims. Academic research has documented repeated tensions involving Chinese vessels operating in waters that Indonesia considers part of its EEZ.
So this is better understood as a maritime jurisdictional and EEZ dispute/tension, rather than a territorial dispute over Indonesian islands.
The situation demonstrates another feature of BRICS: not every disagreement needs to become an armed conflict to complicate political cooperation.

What About Russia and China?

Another claim sometimes made about BRICS is that Russia and China remain locked in an unresolved territorial dispute over Russia's Far East.
That is no longer accurate. China and Russia historically had serious territorial disputes, particularly along their long border, but the remaining major territorial issues were settled through agreements in the 1990s and 2000s, with the final territorial transfers completed in 2008.
There are certainly strategic asymmetries and geopolitical sensitivities in the Russian Far East, but it would be misleading to describe the current China–Russia relationship as being defined by an active territorial claim by Beijing against Russian Far Eastern territory.
This distinction matters because, when BRICS already has enough real internal contradictions, there is no need to manufacture additional ones.

So How Can BRICS Possibly Create Consensus?

This brings us back to the central question.

If BRICS contains India and China, Saudi Arabia and Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, Egypt and Ethiopia, Iran and the UAE, and Indonesia and China—with several of these relationships involving serious strategic disagreements—how can the organization possibly reach consensus?

The answer is that BRICS has developed a "method of compartmentalization." In which it does not attempt to solve every bilateral dispute between its members.
BRICS operates primarily as a forum for cooperation in areas where common interests can be identified.
The organization's decision-making is based on consensus. It has-

no constitutive treaty,
no permanent secretariat, and
no unified supranational authority comparable to the European Union.

This actually gives BRICS a certain advantage.

India and China do not need to solve their Himalayan boundary dispute inside BRICS. They can discuss the border bilaterally while cooperating in BRICS on issues such as development, global governance reform, trade, finance or multilateral institutions.
Egypt and Ethiopia do not need BRICS to adjudicate the Nile dispute. They can pursue negotiations through other diplomatic channels.
Saudi Arabia and Iran do not have to resolve their regional rivalry before participating in the same BRICS meeting.

This is the logic of "functional cooperation" despite strategic competition.
And it has historical precedents. International organizations frequently bring together countries that disagree profoundly with one another. "The United Nations" itself exists partly because international cooperation would be impossible if states had to resolve all bilateral disputes before sitting at the same table.
BRICS can therefore survive its internal rivalries precisely because it does not demand complete strategic alignment, but there is a limit to this strategy.

The Problem With Compartmentalization.

Bilateral disputes can be kept outside a meeting room, but they cannot necessarily be kept outside foreign policy.
Consider the current war involving Iran.
Iran is a BRICS member, but the United States is not. Therefore, if Iran is attacked by the United States, BRICS members face pressure to oppose unilateral military action and defend principles such as sovereignty and non-intervention. But the problem becomes considerably more complicated when Iran's conflict also affects other BRICS members.
Iran has attacked or threatened Saudi Arabia and the UAE during the current regional crisis. The UAE has suspended economic relations with Iran. Saudi Arabia has faced missile and drone attacks linked to Iran-aligned forces.
Now BRICS faces an almost impossible diplomatic balancing act.

"What happens when one BRICS member attacks another BRICS member?"

Does the organization defend Iran because Iran is being attacked by a non-BRICS power?
Does it condemn Iran because Saudi Arabia and the UAE are also members?
Does it condemn the United States?
Does it condemn all attacks?
Does it issue a carefully worded statement that avoids assigning blame?

This is not merely a theoretical problem.
The 2026 BRICS summit in New Delhi is taking place precisely amid these tensions. The war involving Iran has become an immediate test of BRICS' ability to produce a common political position.
The challenge is compounded by the fact that the conflict affects energy markets, shipping and the Strait of Hormuz—issues that directly affect several BRICS economies.
In other words, a conflict between two or three members can quickly become a collective BRICS economic problem.

BRICS Is Not an Alliance — and That May Be Its Greatest Strength

This distinction is crucial.

BRICS should not be understood as a military alliance.
It is not NATO.
It does not have a mutual-defense clause.
It does not require members to defend one another militarily.
Nor is it a political union comparable to the European Union.
It is better understood as a flexible coordination mechanism among major Global South and emerging powers, built around areas of overlapping interest.

That flexibility is precisely why-

India can remain strategically close to the United States and simultaneously cooperate with China and Russia inside BRICS.
It is why Saudi Arabia can maintain security ties with Washington while joining BRICS alongside Iran.
It is why Egypt can cooperate with Ethiopia in some multilateral settings while continuing to fight over the Nile.
And it is why China and India can remain strategic competitors while participating in the same institution.

The contradiction is not an accidental flaw, but to some extent, the contradiction is the model.
BRICS does not require its members to stop being rivals. It requires them to find areas where rivalry can be temporarily compartmentalized in favour of cooperation.

The Larger Question: Can BRICS Turn Diversity Into Power?

This is where the future of BRICS becomes particularly interesting.
The expansion that created internal contradictions also created enormous strategic potential.
The eleven members collectively bring together major energy producers, manufacturing powers, commodity exporters, large consumer markets, maritime chokepoints, financial centres and strategically located developing economies. The group now stretches across South America, Eurasia, Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia.
Its members therefore have enormous incentives to cooperate.
Energy is one obvious area, while trade is the second one. Infrastructure, development finance, payment systems, technology, food security, climate policy and reform of international institutions provide additional areas of possible cooperation.
Recent BRICS discussions have increasingly explored alternatives and complements to Western-dominated financial infrastructure. India, for example, has been advocating greater interoperability among members' digital payment systems and central-bank digital currencies, while explicitly framing the proposal as a way to make cross-border payments easier rather than necessarily creating a single BRICS currency. Yet political tensions—including India–China security concerns and the breakdown in Iran–UAE financial relations—illustrate how difficult even technical integration can become.
This illustrates the central BRICS dilemma perfectly: "Economic interdependence creates reasons to cooperate. Geopolitical rivalry creates reasons to hesitate."

The China Question Inside BRICS

There is another "structural problem" that cannot be ignored: China's enormous weight inside the grouping.
BRICS may describe itself as a collective platform of emerging and developing powers, but its members are not economically equal.
China's economy is substantially larger than that of any other BRICS member, giving Beijing considerable "structural influence" over the grouping's economic agenda. This has generated concern in countries such as India about whether BRICS could gradually become more China-centric rather than genuinely multipolar. Recent scholarship on BRICS expansion specifically identifies India–China competition and disagreements over the future international order as important constraints on the grouping's cohesion.
For India, therefore, BRICS represents both an opportunity and a "strategic challenge." India wants a stronger "Global South voice."

It wants reform of global institutions.
It supports a more multipolar international system.
But it does not want a multipolar system in which one member—China—becomes overwhelmingly dominant.

This is one reason India's approach to BRICS tends to emphasize strategic autonomy, consensus and issue-based cooperation, rather than transforming BRICS into an explicitly anti-Western alliance. Current analysis of India's 2026 BRICS presidency highlights precisely this balancing act.

The Club of Frenemies

This brings us back to the paradox with which we began.

BRICS wants to reshape the world to ensure, as one of it concern, a greater voice for the Global South.
It wants reform of international institutions.
It wants greater economic cooperation among emerging powers.
It increasingly challenges the assumption that the global order should be structured primarily around Western preferences.
Yet the organization contains countries that compete over territory, water, energy, regional influence, markets and strategic space.
India and China remain strategic competitors.
Saudi Arabia and Iran remain regional rivals.
Saudi Arabia and the UAE increasingly compete for influence and economic leadership.
Egypt and Ethiopia remain divided over the Nile.
Iran and the UAE have experienced a dramatic breakdown in economic relations.
China and Indonesia face recurring maritime tensions around the North Natuna Sea.

Because these disagreements arise from geography, national interests, historical memory, resource dependence and competing visions of regional order. suggest they are not superficial, but natural.Therefore unlikely to disappear simply because the countries sit together at a BRICS summit. Perhaps that is precisely what makes BRICS interesting, where its success does not necessarily depend on eliminating rivalry, but may depend on managing rivalry without allowing it to destroy cooperation.
For example, "the European Union" was built partly on the idea that former enemies could create institutions strong enough to make war less likely. BRICS is fundamentally different. It does not attempt to erase geopolitical competition. Instead, it tries to create a political and economic space in which countries with incompatible interests can still cooperate where their interests overlap.
That is a much weaker form of integration, but it can also be a surprisingly durable one.

The Future of BRICS Will Be Decided by Its Contradictions

The greatest test for BRICS will therefore not be whether its members agree. They clearly do not, but the real test will be whether they can disagree without becoming incapable of acting together.

If India and China can compartmentalize their border rivalry, BRICS can function.
If Saudi Arabia and Iran can cooperate economically despite their regional competition, BRICS can function.If Saudi Arabia and the UAE can manage
their strategic divergence without allowing it to poison wider cooperation, BRICS can function.
If Egypt and Ethiopia can keep the Nile dispute outside BRICS decision-making, BRICS can function.

But if bilateral conflicts repeatedly determine how members vote, what statements they issue, what economic mechanisms they support and which members they are willing to defend, then BRICS could become a forum for disagreement rather than an instrument of global influence.
The current Iran crisis provides perhaps the clearest warning, where a grouping can ignore bilateral disputes when those disputes remain geographically and politically compartmentalized.
It becomes much harder when those disputes become the international issue itself. That is the challenge facing BRICS today.
Its members want a new world order, but they do not necessarily agree on what that new order should look like.
They want greater Global South influence, but they disagree over who should lead it.
They want economic cooperation, but they compete economically.
They oppose unilateralism, but some members are simultaneously using military power against other members.
They want "strategic autonomy," but they maintain very different relationships with the United States, Europe, Russia and China.
And yet they continue to sit at the same table.
That is why-

BRICS is best understood not as a community of like-minded states, but as a club of "frenemies (Friends + Enemies)"—countries that compete, distrust and sometimes confront one another, while simultaneously recognizing that cooperation can serve their interests.

The question is not whether those contradictions will disappear. They will not, but the question is-

Whether BRICS can turn those contradictions into a form of managed competition—and whether that is enough to transform the global order?

For the foreseeable future, BRICS will remain exactly what its internal politics suggest: a coalition of competitors trying to cooperate in a world where none of them is willing to surrender its own national interests. And that may ultimately be both its "greatest weakness"—and its "greatest strength."

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