Valdai Club Programme Director Timofei Bordachev published a piece ahead of the 2026 BRICS Summit in Delhi about how “Non–Alignment No Longer Exists”. He argued that the West only tolerates the behavior of Global South countries like India that “undermines its dominance” because it’s too weak to force them to reverse course. He also said that they cynically support such policies that complicate China’s goals but expect that all countries will capitulate to them once Russia and China are defeated.
The overarching theme of his piece is that the West perceives everything in a zero-sum perspective that can be summarized as Bush Jr.’s infamous declaration that “you’re either with us or against us.” Likewise, it can be argued that Bordachev perceives everything the same way, albeit from the opposite side of the New Cold War over the future of the global systemic transition. Accordingly, the subtext is that India and others should dump the West, which will never stop trying to manipulate and subordinate them.
Bordachev is correct that “we have no serious reason to regard the phenomenon of ‘non–alignment’ as a reality of international life” nowadays since countries either want to restore Western hegemony or facilitate the creation of a truly multipolar world order. There’s no “third way” like there was between capitalism and communism during the Old Cold War. Nevertheless, what he didn’t consider is that multi-alignment is the new non-alignment, meaning that it’s the trend that many states are now taking up.
Led by India, rising powers like fellow BRICS members Brazil and Indonesia that are committed to the creation of a truly multipolar world order believe that it can best be achieved through gradual and pragmatic means, not radical ones of the sort that some multipolar enthusiasts propose. This takes the form of gradually accelerating financial multipolarity processes through BRICS while benefiting from trade with the West and investment from it instead of actively opposing the West like Russia does.
Multi-alignment’s pragmatism has been demonstrated by China, which is the US’ systemic rival, but even it doesn’t actively oppose the West like Russia does as confirmed by its informal compliance with some anti-Russian sanctions and continued drone sales to Ukraine. It’s therefore unrealistic to expect India and others with relatively less influence on the global system than China does to do what even the People’s Republic won’t by dumping the West, whose investments and imports fueled China’s superpower rise.
Russia, Iran, and North Korea, which are the only three states that can currently be considered American adversaries, can’t radically accelerate multipolar processes without China following suit. It’s unlikely to do so, however, due to its complex economic interdependence with the West. While this makes China vulnerable, its leadership believes that it’s better than becoming an American adversary by dumping the West. Unless this calculation changes, multipolarity will therefore only develop gradually, not radically.
China, India, and all the others that multi-align in the New Cold War expect that tensions will remain manageable, and that multipolarity will inevitably replace unipolarity, so there’s no need to risk the consequences of employing radical means to accelerate the fulfilment of their envisaged world order. Even Putin has come around to this way of thinking as proven by him discussing “major Russia-US projects” with Trump’s envoys. All of this should make Bordachev reconsider his zero-sum perspective.
