Given that some of its new members are on opposite sides of current wars, the BRICS summit in New Delhi (Sept 12-13) did not produce a bold communique that might have justified the bloc’s billing as a platform working towards an alternative world order.
What it came out with was a unanimous but too generic declaration that needed 140 paragraphs, the longest in BRICS history, to accommodate the positions of all its members.
On the most immediately contentious issue on the BRICS agenda, the US-Israel-instigated war in West Asia, the summit avoided explicitly supporting Iran, one of its own members. This was a step back from the Rio de Janeiro Summit last year, when the final communique specifically condemned US and Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities in June 2025. This time, because new members United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia are arrayed against Tehran by virtue of hosting American military facilities, the language was toned down to “deep concern” over deliberate attacks on nuclear facilities and civilian infrastructure. While that can be read as being supportive of Tehran, there was a gentle nudge as well in the call to honour freedom of navigation and keep critical commercial shipping routes open.
Despite such parsing of the text, the Delhi Declaration will still raise the hackles of Washington. Without naming names, the summit urges parties in the conflict to avoid “actions that could further aggravate the situation” and to “respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of states”. While phrased to apply to both the US and Iran, the language fits the Trump Administration better. On weaponisation of sanctions and tariffs, both of which Trump’s America has wielded with impunity against allies and adversaries alike, the Delhi Declaration is a bit more forthcoming. It explicitly condemns the use of coercive measures, unilateral tariffs and secondary sanctions against emerging economies, and in a first for BRICS, criticises the blockade of Cuba, another new member of BRICS.
On Palestine too, the summit again stays shy of specifics, indicating only the drift of its thinking. Mentioning Israel in passing, it declares itself against “the use of starvation as a method of warfare, attacks targeting civilians and civilian objects, including healthcare facilities and other civilian infrastructure, as well as the unlawful obstruction of humanitarian access.” As with America, this criticism of Israel skirts the genocide in Gaza, choosing only to remind Tel Aviv of its obligations to restore humanitarian aid channels to that tragic territory and respect the ceasefire in Lebanon.
The Delhi Declaration is a fence-sitter’s document. The whiff of the summit host’s influence emanates from it. From its tortuous position as a friend to foes and foe to friends, New Delhi has succeeded in piloting a declaration that is oblique but can pass as a work in progress. It’s not hard to see why it has to take such pains. India at this juncture is taking the brunt of the energy consequences of the war in West Asia and is wilting under Donald’s Trump’s coercion. Its interests are strategic, but its pains are immediate. That explains why it worked hard to take the edge out of this communique while pushing the more strategic goals on counterterrorism, Security Council reform, and cross-border local currency payment mechanisms. This is how strategic ambivalence works, and New Delhi thinks it is the master of it.