Author: Vito Errichetti – 29/09/2026

Source: https://www.vision-gt.eu/news/un-brics-and-power-the-changing-global-order-tiberio-graziani-fragmentation-is-already-under-way/

The 13 September New Delhi BRICS Summit, which approved a 140-point declaration, brought some of the central questions shaping the current transformation of the international order back to the forefront: the reform of the United Nations, the redistribution of power, the role of the BRICS, and the emergence of new global dynamics. Against this backdrop, Vito Errichetti interviewed Tiberio Graziani, Chairman of Vision & Global Trends, on the transition from the unipolar order towards an increasingly complex and polycentric international system. The interview also anticipates some of the issues that will be addressed at the seminar “India in the New Global Order: Strategic Autonomy, Connectivity and the Transformation of Power,” to be held in Rome on 6 October 2026 and organized by Vision & Global Trends and CERIPI – Link University.

Is the UN still a place where international balances are determined, or does it merely take note of decisions made elsewhere?

From a strictly realist perspective, the UN has never truly been the place where international balances are determined. Rather, it is the arena in which existing power relations are represented, negotiated, sometimes moderated and, in certain cases, legitimized. The Security Council itself, with its five permanent members endowed with veto power, still reflects the distribution of power that emerged from the Second World War.

This does not mean that the United Nations is irrelevant. It retains an important role as a venue for mediation, as a universal forum, and as a source of norms and international legitimacy. But when the vital strategic interests of the great powers are at stake, the Organization’s structural limitations become clear. The major crises that have marked the history of the UN reveal precisely this tension between normative universalism and the actual distribution of power. An emblematic case is Kosovo in 1999: NATO’s military intervention began without specific authorization from the Security Council, which intervened subsequently, through Resolution 1244, to define the framework for the international presence. In that case, law followed the fait accompli.

Today this contradiction is even more evident because the institutional architecture of 1945 must contend with a profoundly transformed international configuration. In other words, the UN continues formally to represent the international community, while the redistribution of power is proceeding largely outside its structures.

Does Trump’s “America First” signal a new American unilateralism, or the definitive crisis of the unipolar order?

To read “America First” solely as the return of American unilateralism, as is often suggested, seems reductive to me. I would regard it instead as one of the manifestations of the crisis of the hegemonic role exercised by the United States after the end of the Cold War.

The so-called “unipolar moment”, which began with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, allowed Washington for a certain period to exercise an exceptional capacity to shape the international order. That phase has progressively come to an end. Russia’s resurgence after the difficult Yeltsin decade, the rise of China, the emergence of India and other continent-sized states, and the growing weight of the so-called Global South have altered the distribution of power.

“America First” therefore also expresses the American need to adapt to an international environment in which the cost of maintaining hegemony has become higher and the capacity to impose rules and priorities unilaterally has diminished. At the same time, Washington continues to seek to preserve its centrality through its system of alliances and, in particular, through a Euro-Atlantic relationship that remains strongly asymmetrical and within which European strategic autonomy continues to be very limited.

We are in the midst of a transition. On the one hand, the United States is seeking to preserve as much as possible of the centrality acquired during the previous cycle; on the other, there is a growing demand from China, India and numerous actors of the Global South for greater participation in defining the international order. Many contemporary crises should also be understood within this structural tension.

You speak of Europe’s “internalized external direction”. What room does Italy have today to build a genuinely autonomous foreign policy?

The problem, even before it is diplomatic or military, is cultural. To build a more autonomous foreign policy, Italy would first have to embark on a process of intellectual emancipation. When I speak of “internalized external direction”, this is precisely what I mean: subordination becomes all the more effective the less it is perceived as such.

In the Italian case, this does not concern only part of the ruling classes. Over the decades, it has penetrated public debate, political language, cultural production and even the way in which the national interest and the country’s geopolitical space are conceived. An apparently marginal but highly significant example concerns geographical terminology. Italian journalistic, political and even academic language routinely uses the expression “Middle East” to refer also to an area that, according to the European geographical tradition and from Italy’s Mediterranean perspective, properly belongs to the “Near East”. This is not merely a terminological question: it is the sign of a mental map adopted from another geopolitical centre and progressively internalized as one’s own. By contrast, it is significant that India commonly uses the expression “West Asia”: every geopolitical space tends to name the world from its own vantage point. Even such details reveal the depth of cultural subordination.

But subordination is not merely cultural: it also has a material and strategic dimension, linked to the US military presence on Italian territory and to Italy’s incorporation into security arrangements defined largely outside its autonomous geopolitical horizon and primarily for Washington’s benefit.

Effective autonomy would therefore require a gradual process capable of expanding Italy’s room for initiative vis-à-vis its American ally and, more generally, within the Euro-Atlantic system. It would not mean isolation, but the capacity to articulate priorities and interests autonomously.

The decisive point, however, is that Italy should once again think of itself from the standpoint of its own geography. It is a Mediterranean country, but it also projects towards the Eurasian continental space; it therefore occupies a pivotal position between Europe, the Mediterranean, Africa and the major routes towards the East. A genuinely autonomous foreign policy should proceed from this position, developing a multi-vector posture capable of bringing together its Mediterranean, European and Eurasian dimensions.

From this perspective, some countries offer interesting examples. Türkiye, although a NATO member and partly a Mediterranean country, has over the past two decades developed a strongly multi-vector foreign policy, maintaining relations with Washington and the Atlantic Alliance while simultaneously creating its own room for manoeuvre towards Russia, Central Asia, its southern and eastern neighbourhood, East Africa and the Turkic world. It is not, of course, a model to be reproduced mechanically, but it demonstrates that alliance membership and the pursuit of strategic autonomy are not necessarily incompatible.

The New Delhi Declaration calls for reform of the Security Council. Is it realistic to think that the veto powers will accept a reduction of their privileges?

This is one of the fundamental issues. The New Delhi Declaration does not propose abolishing the veto, but reiterates the need for comprehensive reform of the United Nations and the Security Council so that it becomes more representative, particularly through greater representation of emerging countries and the Global South. China and Russia, both permanent members, have also reiterated their support for the aspirations of Brazil and India to play a greater role in the United Nations, including the Security Council.

The problem is that any substantial reform inevitably affects the distribution of power institutionalized in 1945. Those who hold a privileged position are unlikely to relinquish it voluntarily. This is precisely why the issue cannot be separated from the broader transformation of the international order. If the actual distribution of power continues to change, pressure will increase for multilateral institutions to adapt as well. From this perspective, UN reform will not precede the transformation of power relations; to a large extent, it will be a consequence of it.

India engages with the BRICS, the United States, Russia and Europe. Is its “multi-alignment” the new face of non-alignment?

Exactly. Rather than a break with non-alignment, I would regard it as an adaptation of that tradition to contemporary conditions.

Strategic autonomy has been deeply embedded in India’s foreign-policy tradition since independence. Multi-alignment updates this tradition for an international system in which alignments are less rigid and the geometries of cooperation are becoming variable.

New Delhi can cooperate with Washington within the Quad, maintain its historic relationship with Moscow, participate in the BRICS alongside China, develop relations with Europe and, at the same time, present itself as one of the principal interlocutors of the Global South. This is not neutrality in the classical sense of the term, nor a mechanical revival of the spirit of Bandung in 1955. I would define it instead as a form of strategic autonomy: the determination not to delegate to others the definition of one’s own interests and to keep multiple avenues of engagement open.

It is a tendency that, in different forms, we can also observe in other regions, beginning with Central Asia: cooperation with Russia and China for historical, economic and geographical reasons, while at the same time opening towards the European Union, the United States, Türkiye and other interlocutors. It is one of the most significant indications of the systemic changes under way.

How long can India maintain this balance among Washington, Moscow, Beijing and Brussels without New Delhi being forced to choose?

The question partly presupposes a logic of alignment typical of the bipolar system. In the present framework, however, the ability to avoid an exclusive choice can itself constitute a source of power.

India is aware of the value of its position. Its strategic autonomy enables it to maintain differentiated relations with interlocutors that may themselves be competitors and, precisely through this plurality of relationships, to increase its bargaining leverage.

Naturally, there are limits and contradictions, especially in its relationship with China. But an exclusive choice in favour of one of the major poles would reduce India’s room for manoeuvre and, with it, part of the balancing role that New Delhi can exercise in the current transition.

For this reason, I believe that India will continue, as far as possible, to privilege autonomy over rigid alignment.

You distinguish between “multipolarity” and “polycentrism”. What is the difference, and why do you consider the latter concept more effective?

The two concepts are related, but they do not coincide. Multipolarity essentially concerns the distribution of power. A system is multipolar when the capacity to influence international balances is not concentrated in a single pole or in two principal poles, but is distributed among several major actors. Multipolarity, however, continues predominantly to describe a distribution of power among state actors—that is, among entities that can be situated within the Westphalian logic of international order.

Polycentrism, by contrast, concerns the structure of the order. Today, transformation does not affect only power relations among states. Alongside states, large regional spaces, international organizations and groupings such as the BRICS are also active; infrastructure networks, logistics corridors, financial and payment systems, technological platforms, energy networks and centres of knowledge production are likewise acquiring increasing importance. These are actors, structures and mechanisms that interact with the state dimension without being entirely reducible to it. By also encompassing non-state actors, polycentrism allows us to grasp more fully the current transformation of the world system.

We can therefore say that multipolarity tells us how power is distributed, whereas polycentrism helps us understand through which centres, networks and structures that power is organized and exercised.

For this reason, I consider the concept of polycentrism more adequate for describing the contemporary transition. The world is not simply moving from one dominant pole to a plurality of state poles. It is becoming more complex: different centres of decision-making are emerging, operating at different territorial and functional scales, and they cooperate, compete and overlap.

I would therefore say that multipolarity describes one dimension of the dynamic international realignment; polycentrism seeks to capture its overall form.

Are the BRICS really building alternatives to the current international financial system, or are we still at the stage of declarations?

We are in an intermediate phase. It would be premature to speak today of a fully established alternative financial system; reducing everything to mere declarations, however, would risk obscuring the process already under way.

The New Delhi Declaration records, for example, the work of the BRICS Payment Task Force on cross-border payments, the interoperability of payment and messaging systems, and the use of national currencies in trade and investment. But it also makes clear that national priorities remain different and that there is no single solution applicable to all.

In my view, we need to become accustomed to the idea of coexistence. We will not necessarily witness the sudden replacement of the current international financial architecture by an entirely separate one. It is more likely that complementary or alternative circuits, instruments and platforms will gradually emerge, initially concentrated in particular regional spaces or specific functions.

The polycentric transition also advances in this way: through overlaps, experimentation and variable geometries, rather than through systemic replacement.

Is the great heterogeneity of the BRICS a strength, or does it risk becoming the main obstacle to building a more cohesive geopolitical actor?

In my view, the problem arises when a heterogeneous grouping is interpreted through categories devised to describe compact and opposing blocs. The BRICS are not destined to become a unitary political actor or a kind of alliance mirroring the West.

Rather, the BRICS constitute an extremely diverse geopolitical and geoeconomic grouping. Their members share certain interests and, above all, a growing dissatisfaction with the distribution of representation and power within international institutions. Yet they retain different national interests and priorities and, in some cases, openly divergent ones. One need only consider the complexities of the China–India relationship or the tensions between India and Pakistan.

Heterogeneity, however, does not necessarily prevent cooperation. On the contrary, the political significance and originality of the BRICS may lie precisely in their capacity to build selective convergences without requiring ideological uniformity or full strategic alignment.

In this sense, the BRICS are interesting because they anticipate a possible feature of a polycentric order: different actors, embodying different historical and cultural traditions, can cooperate on specific objectives without being compelled to converge on a single political model.

In 2027, the BRICS will be chaired by China. Will we see a more fragmented international order, or a new stable equilibrium among multiple centres of power?

Fragmentation is already under way. We should not necessarily regard it as the endpoint of the transformation, but rather as one of the phases through which the previous order is decomposing. Every major international transition passes through a phase in which old hierarchies lose effectiveness while new forms of order have not yet fully consolidated. In my view, this is the situation in which we now find ourselves.

The issue, therefore, is not whether the world will become fragmented: it already is, to an increasing degree. The question is what forms of recomposition may emerge from this fragmentation.

From this perspective, China’s BRICS presidency in 2027 will represent a significant juncture. The New Delhi Declaration formally entrusts China with the 2027 presidency and the organization of the 19th Summit. It will therefore be interesting to see to what extent Beijing succeeds in turning the many initiatives currently under discussion into operational mechanisms without undermining the flexibility and plurality of interests that characterize the grouping.

My reading is that we have entered a phase of polycentric recomposition. Following the fragmentation of the previous order, the challenge will be to recompose the international mosaic around multiple centres of power, multiple spaces and multiple forms of cooperation, without any single one of them once again being able to claim to represent the entire system.

We would like to thank Vito Errichetti for kindly granting permission for the English translation of this interview, originally published in the daily newspaper Cronache on Friday, 25 September 2026 (www.lecronache.info).