BRICS+

I've been a member since 2011 and this is my first post. I've been a federal worker until this month (retired after 33 years) and I take the Hatch Act seriously. Unfortunately, it's become cleat the senior levels of the deep state do not have this concern.

I want to take advantage of my familiarity with this community to both raise awareness of, and possibly dispel, my growing anxiety about what I think are significant geopolitical issues.

Background:

In 2009 Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa formed an economic alliance to invest in developing nations as an alternative to the Western-dominated World Bank and IMF. In December, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and Argentina were invited to join.

The stated goal of the BRICS+ is to supplant the dollar and the euro as the dominant world's reserve currency. The only reason I can think of why the Saudis, Egyptians, and Emirates would join the Iranians in such a relationship comes down to China. What might China have to do with this? Simple self-interest on behalf of the Gulf states. China consumes much of the Middle East's petroleum. In the event that China does something to warrant international sanctions, the Gulf states would need an alternative to the dollar to continue to trade with China.

Analysis:

Recently, Germany, after pulling back on its promise to send aid to Ukraine, directed the interest on frozen Russian assets to Ukraine instead. This spurred the Saudis to warn the Germans that such a move would be a red line, and that Saudi Arabia would dump all sovereign debt.

As I write this, the US is currently upside down on debt to GDP, with OMB projecting to add another $11 trillion to our debt through deficit spending over the next 9 years. These are big numbers, so let me provide some context. Today the single most expensive item of discretionary spending is maintenance on our debt, which amounts to ~$1 trillion; the second most expensive item is the roughly $800 billion we spend on the entire DoD (yes, the Army, Navy, Marines, and Air force as well as the entire Intelligence community.) In other words, each year we are spending more on debt maintenance than on national security. Remember that OMB projects this to get worse as deficit spending continues. OMB's projection of debt/GDP by 2027 is 120%. The last time the US was in this situation was 1947—after fighting WWII.

Opinion:

The BRICS+ have a common thread beyond self-interest. They are all autocracies of one form or another. Russia and China have consistently expressed revanchist goals. With Western deterrence at an all-time low and with the mitigation of our best soft power weapon—sanctions—what we may be seeing is a realignment in the world's geopolitical order between democracies and autocracies. If so, we need to consider the current strife not as independent wars but as separate but related battles in what may become a global war.

Today, the BRICS+ are more than a financial consortium. There are cultural, technological, and military elements to their cooperation.

I'm hopeful that I am wrong about my analysis and conclusions. In any case, we may want to think about our debt and deficit in terms of national defense as well as how they impact the economy.