BRICS Overtook G-7 in Key Components of National Power—So What?

As Russian President Vladimir Putin hosts the first summit of BRICS+ in Tatarstan’s capital Kazan on Oct. 22–24, it has motivated me to update my comparison of this group of countries with the G-7 in terms of components of national power as of early 2024. This comparison has reaffirmed my earlier findings that BRICS has overtaken the G-7—which some in the former want to position as a rival to the latter—in key components such as economy and demography. But can BRICS put that advantage to use?

Single-Variable Measurements Show BRICS Overtaking G-7...

I began the renewed comparison of BRICS and the G-7 with conducting three waves of measurements focused on their economic and demographic performance: 

1. In 2001, when Goldman Sachs’ Jim O’Neil proposed grouping what he saw as the world’s key emerging economies; 
2. In 2024, the current year; and 
3. In 2029, which is the furthest year for which the April 2024 edition of IMF’s World Economic Outlook offers forecasts for most of the world’s countries.¹

My measurements of economic performance indicate that the BRICS’s share in world GDP has already overtaken that of the G-7 (see Figure 1 and Table 1), if calculated in terms of purchasing power parity (which is how the IMF measures these shares at country-level). The BRICS have also significantly outperformed the G-7 in terms of population, largely thanks to including the two most populous countries in the world: China and India. In fact, the combined population of the BRICS+ will exceed that of G-7 by a factor of four this year, according to U.N. data. However, U.N. data also suggests that the BRICS+ share of the world population is set to decline over the next five years. Also, when exploring how the BRICS have outperformed the G-7 economically and demographically, one should factor in that some (but not all) of that growth came from the addition of new members to the original group consisting of Brazil, Russia, India and China. (These non-original members include South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates.²) 

It should also be noted that, while the BRICS+ countries’ combined economic and demographic resources are greater than those of the G-7, Russia’s recent individual performance in these spheres is not exactly inspiring. For instance, the IMF sees Russia’s share in world GDP declining from 3.14% in 2001 to 2.95% in 2024 and then to 2.71% in 2029. As for Russia’s share in the world’s population, the U.N. sees it declining from 2.34% in 2001, to 1.77% in 2024, to 1.67% in 2029. 

... As Do Multi-Component Measurements of National Power

In addition to employing single-variable methods of measuring national power, such as measuring a nation’s share in world GDP, I have also in the past employed a number of multi-component approaches toward such measurement. I did so in a 2016 article and then in a 2018 Russia Matters paper, which I co-wrote with Nabi Abdullaev. One of the basic multi-component approaches toward measurements of nations, which we employed in that 2018 paper, has been proposed by Chin-Lung Chang of Taiwan’s Fo-guang University.³ Chin-Lung’s approach is as follows:

National Power = (critical mass + economic strength + military strength)/3, where:

• Critical mass = ([nation’s population/world total] * 100) + [nation’s area/world total] * 100)
• Economic Strength = (nation’s GDP/world GDP) * 200
• Military Strength = (nation’s military expenditures/world military expenditures) * 200

My latest calculations based on Chin-Lung’s approach reveal BRICS+’s combined power is greater than that of the G-7, though only by 8.8% (see Table 3). The narrowness of this gap can perhaps be explained by the fact that the G-7 is spending twice as much on defense as BRICS+.

Another multi-component approach toward measuring the power of nations, which we employed in the 2018 RM paper, was the Revised Geometric Index of Traditional National Capabili­ties (RGITNC). RGITNC constitutes our modification of the Geometric Indicator of National Capabilities proposed by Kelly Kadera and Gerald Sorokin⁴ and it is calculated as the geometric mean of the following ratios: 

• Ratio of country’s total population to world’s total population
• Ratio of country’s urban population to world’s urban population
• Ratio of country’s primary energy consumption to world’s primary energy consumption
• Ratio of country’s military expenditures to world’s military expenditures
• Ratio of country’s value-added manufacturing to world’s value-added manufacturing

My latest application of this method for the purposes of comparing BRICS+ and the G-7 reveals that the former’s combined national power (0.380862) exceeded that of the latter (0.222925) by about 52% in 2022 (see Table 4).

Conclusion: BRICS Has Overtaken G-7, But Can Russia Lead?

As the results of applying both single-variable and multi-variable approaches employed above demonstrate, BRICS+ has overtaken the G-7 in terms of combined national power. But what does that mean and entail? Some (particularly in Russia’s or China’s ruling elites) may interpret it as further evidence of a declining West. That might or might not be the case, but it is important to keep in mind that BRICS+—some of whose members insist their participation in this group is not against any third parties—lags behind the G-7 in terms of cohesion, particularly in adopting and implementing common policies, such as the implementation of collective sanctions against other countries. Whether BRICS+ can transform its collective potential into the capacity to play a key role in shaping the direction of the world order’s evolution remains to be seen. Moreover, even if BRICS+ were to succeed in evolving from a loosely-knit club into a cohesive collective player on the international scene—that is willing and capable of shaping key global trends—it remains doubtful that Russia can co-lead these processes, unless it can back its ambitions with a greater share in the aforementioned fundamental components of this group’s combined national power (see Table 1).

Footnotes: 

1. This post was researched before IMF released its latest World Economic Outlook on Oct. 21, 2024. This latest outlook estimates that Russia’s GDP grew by 3.6% in 2023, and that it will grow by another 3.6% in 2024 and then by 1.3% in 2025. The previous update of its outlook, released in July, estimated that Russia’s GDP grew by 3.6% in 2023 and that it would grow by 3.2% in 2024 and then by 1.5% in 2025.
2. Countries that have reportedly considered joining BRICS also include Turkey, which has actually applied for membership, as well as Argentina and Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia was even described as a member of BRICS in Vladimir Putin’s speech on Russia’s chairmanship of the group in January 2024, but it was participating in the October 2024 summit as a guest, not a member.
3. Chang, Chin-Lung. “A measure of national power,” Proceedings of the 2004 International Seminar at the National University of Malaysia, Bangi, Malaysia. 2004: 1617.
4. Kadera, Kelly and Gerald Sorokin. “Measuring National Power,” International Interactions 30, no. 3. 2004: 211-230.
5. 2023 is the latest year for which World Bank and SIPRI, which the author relied upon to calculate national power per Chin-Lung Chang’s formula, had data for the majority of these countries. 
6. 2022 is the latest year for which data is available for the majority of these countries. Sources for data used in calculation of this index include World Bank, EIA and SIPRI.

This is an evolving draft, which may be expanded, as more approaches toward measuring national power are employed.

The author would like to thank RM managing editor Angelina Flood and RM editor Ivan Arreguín-Toft for editing this post. The author also would like to thank Angelina and RM student associate Chris Conway for double-checking the measurements.