The 18th BRICS Summit, to be held in New Delhi on 12–13 September 2026, convenes at a defining juncture in the evolution of the global order.
What began as an economic grouping of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa has expanded into a far more consequential constellation of emerging powers.
Yet its growing weight raises an uncomfortable question: what, precisely, is BRICS becoming?
Its scale is formidable. With its expanded membership representing a substantial share of humanity and global economic output, BRICS possesses the potential to reshape the architecture of international trade, finance and governance.
But economic weight alone does not create strategic coherence. A grouping this diverse cannot become a credible force merely by accumulating members.
It offers a vocabulary broad enough to accommodate democracies and autocracies, oil exporters and manufacturing giants, regional rivals and strategic partners. Yet that very breadth may also hold back a deeper absence of common purpose.
New Delhi must welcome countries such as Iran without allowing BRICS to become an explicitly anti-Western coalition.
At the same time, India maintains deepening strategic, defence and commercial relationships with the United States and other Western economies.
Paradoxically, that restraint may strengthen BRICS.
India occupies a unique geopolitical position. It maintains important relationships with Washington and Moscow, competes with Beijing while simultaneously engaging it, and seeks a larger voice for the Global South without severing ties with the existing international system. As host, India can therefore act not merely as convener but as bridge-builder.
The presence of China’s Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin would give this summit considerably greater political weight than a gathering marked by conspicuous absences.
Meetings between Indian, Chinese and Russian leaders may prove as significant as the summit’s formal declarations. The possibility of dialogue among states with sharply divergent interests illustrates BRICS’ potential as a diplomatic platform.
As a major manufacturing and export economy situated at the strategic crossroads of South and Southeast Asia, Bangladesh has a direct stake in the emerging multipolar order. The Bay of Bengal is no longer merely a maritime neighbourhood; it is becoming an arena where India, China, Russia, the United States and other powers intersect their commercial and strategic ambitions. Bangladesh therefore cannot afford to watch the evolution of BRICS from the sidelines.
New Delhi seeks stronger engagement with Washington and the wider Western economic system while simultaneously giving BRICS greater diplomatic relevance. Its carefully crafted summit theme—“Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability”—captures this balancing act. India does not appear intent on turning BRICS into an anti-Western bloc. Rather, it seeks a platform through which emerging powers can enlarge their strategic and economic autonomy.
That distinction matters enormously for Bangladesh.
Bangladesh’s economic future depends on diversified markets, secure supply chains, competitive trade access, foreign investment and stable relations with all major powers. A confrontational division between Western and non-Western economic spheres would therefore be profoundly damaging. Dhaka’s national interest lies not in choosing one camp against another, but in preserving maximum strategic and commercial space.
BRICS could potentially enlarge that space.
Trade facilitation, local-currency settlements, alternative financial mechanisms, food security, infrastructure investment and reform of global financial institutions could offer developing economies additional avenues for economic resilience. For Bangladesh, participation in such emerging arrangements could eventually provide greater options for trade and finance while reducing excessive dependence on any single market or financial architecture.
The New Delhi summit may not produce a revolutionary transformation of the global economy. BRICS may continue to struggle with ambiguity and internal contradiction. But its expanding influence signals something unmistakable: the world is moving towards a more dispersed distribution of economic power.
Bangladesh must prepare accordingly. In the new global great game, Bangladesh cannot afford to be merely a spectator.
It must become an astute player—turning geography into leverage, economic relevance into diplomatic weight, and strategic balance into national advantage.
The organisation’s internal contradictions are profound. Its members differ dramatically in political systems, strategic priorities and economic structures.
Some are regional rivals. Others have conflicting relationships with the United States and Europe. Even among those advocating a more multipolar world, there is no uniform vision of what that world should look like.
This makes grand geopolitical declarations relatively easy—and meaningful collective action considerably harder.
BRICS’ most realistic future may therefore lie not in constructing an ideological counterweight to the West, but in pursuing practical economic cooperation.
Trade facilitation, local-currency settlement, financial cooperation, food security, agricultural resilience and reform of institutions such as the IMF and World Bank offer areas where interests genuinely overlap.
That is where BRICS could become consequential.
The emerging global order is increasingly multipolar, but multipolarity without institutions can produce fragmentation rather than stability.
BRICS has an opportunity to help build a more representative international system—one in which the Global South has greater influence without transforming global economics into another theatre of confrontation.
Its greatest challenge, however, is credibility. An organisation cannot claim to represent the future of global governance while remaining paralysed by internal contradictions. Nor can it become a serious economic force if political symbolism consistently overwhelms practical cooperation.
The New Delhi summit should therefore be judged by the substance of its commitments.
BRICS does not need to become the enemy of the West to become a force in the world. It needs something more difficult: a coherent purpose.
If it can convert its enormous demographic and economic weight into practical cooperation, institutional reform and strategic restraint, BRICS may help redraw the contours of the global economic order.
If it cannot, its expansion will produce little more than a larger acronym, a longer communiqué—and another missed opportunity in the making of the twenty-first century.
For Bangladesh, the most consequential question is whether BRICS can help create a genuinely more inclusive global economy. International institutions such as the IMF, World Bank and WTO still exercise enormous influence over developing countries.
Greater representation for the Global South is legitimate and necessary—but institutional reform must produce greater fairness, transparency and economic opportunity rather than simply replace one hierarchy with another. Bangladesh should consequently approach BRICS with strategic pragmatism.
