The Israeli-American war against Iran is testing the political coherence of BRICS and raising difficult questions about India’s “multi-alignment” strategy and its ambitions to lead the Global South.
Ricardo Martins
The war involving Israel, supported by the United States, against Iran has placed BRICS in one of its most delicate political moments since its creation. The grouping—originally formed by Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa and later expanded—was conceived as an alternative platform for emerging powers and a political voice for the Global South. Institutions such as the New Development Bank were designed to strengthen South–South cooperation and reduce dependence on Western-led structures.
Yet the current war has exposed a deeper contradiction within the group. Iran is now a full member of BRICS, while India—one of its founding members—has simultaneously deepened its strategic partnership with Israel, the very country, together with the United States, conducting military operations against Tehran.
India continues to present itself as a potential leader of the Global South. At the same time, its expanding strategic partnership with Israel places it at odds with political sensitivities and historical experiences shared by most countries in the Global South
The tension goes beyond diplomatic positioning. It raises a broader question about what kind of political and normative project BRICS represents and whether India’s foreign policy remains fully compatible with it. I consulted several experts to shed light on these issues.
India’s growing partnership with Israel
The strategic partnership between India and Israel is not new. Dr. Vinicius Teixeira, a Brazilian geopolitical analyst and professor at the State University of Mato Grosso (UNEMAT), notes that cooperation between the two countries has been consolidated since the late 1990s, particularly in the defence sector. Israel has provided India with technologies and weapons systems that were often difficult for New Delhi to obtain from Western suppliers, especially in areas such as air defence and missile systems. Over time, cooperation expanded to intelligence sharing and broader strategic coordination.
For Dr Alexandre Coelho, Professor of International Relations at the Fundação Armando Alvares Penteado (FAAP) in São Paulo, and Co-Chair of the Asian and Pacific Research Committee of the International Political Science Association (IPSA), India’s rapprochement with Israel must be understood within the broader transformation of Indian foreign policy over the past two decades.
According to Coelho, India has deliberately diversified its technological, military, and economic partnerships. Israel has emerged as a particularly valuable partner in this process. “Israel has become a central partner for India in key sectors such as defence technology, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and intelligence cooperation,” he notes.
From this perspective, for the Indian geopolitical analyst Ajay Khambhala, the engagement with Israel does not necessarily represent a rupture with India’s other partnerships, but rather part of a broader strategy aimed at maximising national capabilities. Teixeira also observes that the recent acceleration of the relationship reflects not only strategic interests but also a degree of political affinity between the current Indian and Israeli governments.
However, this pragmatic explanation does not fully resolve the political contradiction now facing BRICS.
For Dr. Alexandre Uehara, International Relations Programme Coordinator at ESPM and Visiting Professor at the University of São Paulo (USP), the agreements signed during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Israel in February 2026 signal a shift in India’s diplomatic posture. “This rapprochement indicates a change in Indian foreign policy,” Uehara observes. “Historically, India maintained a more cautious and balanced position regarding Israel and regional disputes such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
The timing of the strengthened partnership—coinciding with the escalation of the war against Iran—has inevitably raised concerns among other BRICS members.
Silence on Iran
The most controversial aspect of India’s position is not simply its partnership with Israel but its refusal to explicitly condemn the Israeli-American strikes against Iran, a fellow BRICS member.
Coelho interprets this stance through the lens of Indian diplomatic practice. “India often adopts what could be described as a strategy of calculated ambiguity,” he explains. Rather than aligning clearly in international conflicts, New Delhi tends to emphasise broader principles such as regional stability, restraint, and diplomatic solutions.
This posture allows India to maintain relations simultaneously with Israel, Iran, and the Gulf states, an important balancing act given its energy dependencies and economic interests in the region.
Indian geopolitical analyst MA Rajan Mishra similarly argues that this cautious approach reflects India’s long-standing effort to avoid becoming directly entangled in Middle Eastern rivalries while preserving relations with multiple actors in the region.
However, the reactions of other BRICS members have been noticeably more critical of Israel’s actions. Countries such as China, Russia, South Africa, and Brazil have openly questioned the legitimacy of military operations against Iran and the massive killing of schoolgirls in Southern Iran, which constitutes a war crime. “India’s position therefore diverges from that of several other BRICS members,” Uehara notes, highlighting the growing political discomfort within the group.
The divisions have also drawn the attention of international relations scholars. Dr John Mearsheimer, the American political scientist known for his theory of offensive realism, argues that the war has revealed a significant fault line within BRICS. While Brazil, Russia, and China have openly criticised the Israeli-American attacks on Iran, India has refrained from doing so, exposing a divergence in the strategic outlook of the bloc’s major members, argues Mearsheimer.
The issue also carries a normative dimension. In many countries of the Global South, Israel is widely perceived as a destabilising actor in the Middle East. Covert operations, targeted assassinations of Iranian scientists, and the broader context of the war in Gaza, the continuing colonisation of the West Bank, the supremacist Jewish principle embedded in Israel’s legal framework with the 2018 Nation-State Law, and the apartheid regime in place have reinforced this perception. In societies with historical memories of colonial domination, apartheid regimes, and externally imposed conflicts, such developments resonate particularly strongly.
This makes India’s close partnership with Israel politically sensitive within a grouping that presents itself as a defender of Global South interests.
The limits of “multi-alignment”
Indian analysts such as Ajay Khambhala, MA Rajan Mishra, and Dr. Ravi Shankar Raj describe the country’s foreign policy as one of “multi-alignment” or “strategic autonomy.” Rather than aligning with a single geopolitical bloc, India seeks to maintain flexible partnerships across different centres of power.
According to Dr. Ravi Shankar Raj, assistant professor at DAV PG College in Varanasi, this approach enables India to pursue its national interests while preserving the diplomatic room for manoeuvre required in an increasingly multipolar world. Raj argues that this strategy allows New Delhi to maintain influence across several geopolitical arenas simultaneously.
Yet critics increasingly question whether such flexibility can coexist with India’s ambition to present itself as a political leader of the Global South.
Coelho notes that the strategy becomes more difficult to sustain when conflicts directly involve partners within the same institutional framework. “When one member of a political grouping is attacked, and another member refuses to condemn the attack, tensions are almost inevitable,” he says.
Uehara similarly observes that BRICS cohesion has always been fragile. “These are very different countries with both converging and diverging interests,” he explains. The war involving Iran simply makes these differences more visible.
This raises a deeper question within international relations theory: at what point does strategic autonomy begin to resemble selective alignment? When a balancing strategy consistently favours one side—especially in a conflict involving a member of the same organisation—it risks being interpreted less as neutrality and more as implicit support.
Energy corridors and geopolitical risks
The geopolitical consequences for India may extend beyond diplomatic credibility.
One of India’s most important strategic projects in the region is the development of the Chabahar Port in Iran, a key gateway for Indian trade routes to Central Asia and Afghanistan that bypasses Pakistan, thereby strengthening India’s presence in Eurasian connectivity networks.
However, the deterioration of relations with Iran could complicate these ambitions.
Brazilian geopolitical analyst Pepe Escobar argues that the broader Eurasian strategic environment—particularly the alignment among Russia, China, and Iran—may constrain India’s room for manoeuvre if New Delhi is perceived as leaning too strongly toward Israel and Western partners. In such a scenario, control over key energy and transport corridors could become more contested.
Whether this scenario materialises remains uncertain, but the war has clearly increased the strategic risks surrounding India’s regional projects, such as the development of the Chabahar Port in Iran and the broader energy and transport corridors linking India to Central Asia and Eurasia—initiatives frequently highlighted by Indian analysts such as Ajay Khambhala, MA Rajan Mishra and Dr Ravi Shankar Raj as central to New Delhi’s regional strategy.
A difficult BRICS summit ahead
These tensions are likely to become visible at the next BRICS summit, scheduled to take place in India. Several member states are expected to push for a collective statement expressing support for Iran and condemning the Israeli-American attacks.
For New Delhi, hosting such a summit while maintaining its current diplomatic posture could prove politically uncomfortable.
Ajay Khambhala notes that India’s diplomatic tradition has long relied on maintaining dialogue with multiple actors simultaneously, an approach that has historically provided considerable flexibility but may now face stronger scrutiny within BRICS.
Coelho believes the situation will also test the organisation’s flexibility. “The group was never designed as a military or ideological alliance,” he notes. Its strength has always been its pragmatic and relatively loose structure.
Mishra likewise emphasises that divergences among BRICS members are inevitable, particularly during complex geopolitical crises.
Yet even flexible forums require a minimum level of political solidarity.
Uehara argues that the real challenge lies in managing these disagreements. If BRICS cannot coordinate responses to major international crises affecting its own members, its geopolitical credibility may inevitably be questioned.
A broader question for the Global South
Ultimately, the debate surrounding India’s position extends beyond the immediate war in Iran.
India continues to present itself as a potential leader of the Global South. At the same time, its expanding strategic partnership with Israel places it at odds with political sensitivities and historical experiences shared by most countries in the Global South.
This tension brings us back to a fundamental question in international relations.
Are concepts such as “strategic autonomy” and “multi-alignment” genuine frameworks for navigating a complex world, or are they diplomatic narratives that allow states to pursue narrowly defined national interests without fully committing to collective political projects?
From a realist perspective, Mearsheimer suggests that such divergences are likely to persist, as states ultimately prioritise national interests over values or institutional solidarity. In his view, the crisis illustrates how even emerging coalitions like BRICS remain vulnerable to the structural pressures of global power politics.
Ricardo Martins – Doctor of Sociology, specialist in European and international politics as well as geopolitics
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