BRICS 2025 expansion planning? | NATO vs BRICS?

BRICS is an coalition of countries just like NATO, originally formed by Russia, India, China, Brazil and South Africa. The group got extended just this year after 6 more countries became its member, powerful middle-eastern countries like Iran, United Arab Emirates have took its membership.

In a recent news it was said that, BRICS has called on the Middle East to stop using the US dollar for oil trade settlements.

36 countries have now applied to join BRICS, this latest development came as a surprise to many. The Saudi Arabia, Pakistan are some of the key countries who might soon become a part of the coalition, according to various news sources.

Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and United Arab Emirates (UAE) have already joined BRICS in January this year, and the new submission of 36 countries willing to join the group makes the BRICS way more powerful if they get the membership.

BRICS or BRICS+ as many calls it, now comprises nine countries.

According to a recent report, Russia may use its special rights as the host country to approve Pakistan's bid to join the BRICS union, in April 2024. The news has surfaced online stating “Pakistan likely to join BRICS in its next summit in Kazan, with the help of Russia.”

NATO is also expanding rapidly, with Ukraine-Russia war, the world is becoming more and more by-polar.

The possibility of potential war between the two groups at various levels are undeniable. Russia, China are two of the most powerful and threat possessing countries in the BRICS to the United States of America.

The Economic war is already on; With Russia, China directly competing with US with the use of their own currency to trade with countries, the "de-dollarization" of the global economy is a thing of talk for economists, and other geopolitical experts.

The US, being the leader and the most powerful spearhead in the NATO, automatically drags the two coalitions into tension and competition. As Russia, China, Iran, are going through tussle diplomatically, things are getting tense and much significant day-by-day, as two groups are in direct competition to control the world order.

Recent news surfaced pointed, “BRICS to bring its own currency of trade”, to “dollar not being considered as the main trading currency”; this confirms the economical war is already being fought between these groups.

On the other hand, NATO's rapid expansion to the East (to the neighbouring countries to Russia), do indicate the growing tensions and tussle to shift global power and control.

In a recently televised interview of Russian President Vladimir Putin, done by US television host Tucker Carlson in Moscow, Putin said Russia was promised “no NATO expansion to the East”, but they did not stand by the promise.

Putin said he was promised, “Not an inch to the East … and then what? They said, ‘Well, it’s not enshrined on paper, so we’ll expand.'” “There were five waves of expansion. We tolerated all that.” Russian President have repeatedly claimed that Western powers broke promises they made not to expand NATO as the Soviet Union collapsed.

BRICS was formed on 16 June 2009, with 6 countries, in 2023 Russia announced the inclusion of five new members: Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. This expansion made headlines, and its comparison with NATO became widely talked topic, in terms of economically, militarily, and its potential to dominate or shift the current world order.

If Saudi Arabia joins the current BRICS formation already consisting of Iran, this would make the alliance way more powerful and dominating. As, Saudi, Iran and Russia together, controls majority of the world crude oil supply, and are part of OPEC+, this means BRICS would control 80% of world oil production.

Other key factors indicating BRICS may surpass NATO in global dominance by 2025: BRICS, would control more around 40% of world GDP and would exceed $40 trillion togather, according to various reports, published after the Russia invited 6 countries last year.

BRICS is not a formal military alliance, however, individual countries in the group, do possess significant military capabilities. If the group's military might combined, the alliance could possess great threat to the current biggest defence alliance that is NATO.

As China recently said, “If NATO attacks Russia, it will join Russia in war against the coalition.”

Russia, China and India are some of the top military powers in the world today, and with incersion of Iran, the military might of BRICS as a coalition looks impressive and possess a great threat to NATO's military capabilites.

Here are some rough estimates of the combined military strength of the BRICS nations, note this is just estimates, and is based on publicly available information, for knowledge purpose only.

The number of combined active duty personnel strength of the BRICS would be?

Defense weapons: