Several nations of the brics grouping held joint naval drills off South Africa’s coast from January 9-16, raising questions about whether the bloc could be edging toward a military alliance.

• In recent years, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates have joined brics (named after its first five member countries: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa).
• The drills included naval forces from China, Ethiopia, Iran, Russia, South Africa and the U.A.E.

Since its founding in 2009, brics has struggled to build unity and failed to produce any workable economic mechanism, much less a defense pact. “Will for Peace 2026” could be an important step toward cohesion and military significance.

“It is a demonstration of our collective resolve to work together,” South Africa’s joint task force commander, Nndwakhulu Thomas Thamaha, said at the opening ceremony. “In an increasingly complex maritime environment, cooperation such as this is not an option, it is essential.”

South China Morning Post’s Maria Siow said the maneuvers may be a “gradual effort to normalize military cooperation within the brics framework, testing whether the bloc can expand its influence into the security realm without officially formalizing itself as an alliance.”

Strategic affairs analyst Shruti Pandalai said China sees the drills as a method of “normalizing military cooperation” within the brics framework.

Blocking America out: Biblical prophecy says a gargantuan economic alliance will soon emerge and block America and some of its allies out of global trade. brics’s apparent ambition to transition into a military bloc is one of many developments today showing the eagerness of many nations to work against American power, and it could help lay the groundwork for this prophesied alliance. Read “Building Toward a World Catastrophe,” by Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry.