Economia De Defensa

BRIC’s
The so called BRIC’S are a different situation. Goldman Sachs coined the term in 2001 to call attention to profitable opportunities in what the investment firm considered “emerging markets”. The BRIC’S share of world product rose rapidly from 16 to 22 percent between 200 and 2008, and collectively they did better than average in the global recession that began in 2008. Together, theyaccounted for 42 percent of world population and 33 percent of world growth in the first decade of the century. Apart from the united states (which ranks third), of the four most populous countries of the world, China, India, Indonesia, and Brazil all had solid economic growth rates above 5 percent in the first decade of the century. In contrast, the U.S. growth rate of 1.9 percent in the first decadeof the best performance, and Russia performance poorly after the recession began.
Ironically, an economic term took on a political life of its own despite the fact that Russia fit poorly in the category. As the Beijing Review commented, “When Goldman Sachs created the acronym BRIC in 2001, neither the economists nor the rest of the world imagined the Brazil, Russia, India and China would finallysit together to build up a substantial platform one day”. In June 2009, the foreign minister of the four countries met in Yekaterinburg, Russia, to transform “a catchy acronym into an international force to be reckoned with.” The BRIC’S held $2.8 trillion, or 42 percent, of global foreign reserves (though most of that was Chinese). Russian president Medvedev stated that “there can be nosuccessful global currency system if the financial instruments that are used are denominated in only one currency”, and after China eclipsed the United States as Brazil’s largest trading partner, Beijing and Sao Pablo announced plans to settle trade in their national currencies rather than dollars. Although Russia account for only 5 percent of China’s trade, the two countries announced a similar agreement.After the recent financial crisis, Goldman Sachs upped the ante and projected that the “combined GDP of the BRIC’S might exceed that of the G7 countries by 2027, about 10 years earlier than we initially believed. Whatever the merits of this linear economic projection, the term makes little political sense for long–range assessment of power resources. Although a meeting of BRIC’s may beconvenient for short-term diplomatic tactics, it lumps together countries that have deep divisions, and including Russia, a former superpower, with the tree developing economies makes little sense. Of the four, Russia has the smallest and most literate population and a much higher per capita income, but, more importantly, many observers believe that Russia is declining while the other three are rising inpower resources. Just two decades ago, “Russia was a scientific superpower, carrying out more research than China, India and Brazil combined. Since then it has been left behind not only by the world-beating growth of Chinese science but also by India and Brazil. As we shall see, the heart of the BRIC acronym is the rise in the resources of China.
RUSSIA
In the 1950’s many Americans feared thatthe Soviet Union would surpass the United states as the world’s leading power. The Soviet Union had the world’s largest territory, third largest population, and second largest economy, and it produced more oil and gas than Saudi Arabia. It possessed nearly one-half the world’s nuclear weapons, had more men under arms the the United States, and had the highest number of people employed in researchand development. It exploded a hydrogen bomb only one year after the United States did in 1952, and it was the first to launch a satellite into space in 1957. In term of soft power, following World War II communist ideology was attractive in Europe because of its resistance to fascism and in the Third World because of its identification with the popular movement toward decolonization. Soviet...