Indonesia Could Still Play Key Role in 5 Years

Marco Rubio acknowledges what this all means: America's time as the global hegemon is over.

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As he told the Megyn Kelly Show in January: "It is not normal for the world to simply have a unipolar power. That was an anomaly. It was a product of the end of the Cold War, but eventually you were going to reach back to a point where you had a multipolar world, multi-great powers in different parts of the planet."

Since those words were spoken, America's moral authority has only cratered further. But what's the alternative? No clear solutions are in sight. As America heads one way, and Europe meanders towards its own destiny independent of the US, the rest of the world is groping for solutions.

PARTS OF BRICS DON'T FIT

Talk of reviving the Global South, while a convenient handle to make a classification of nations, is too diffuse - aside from being mildly patronising in the current circumstances. The closest to a credible structure is Brics, the group that coalesced in 2009 as the acronym for the nations that initially comprised it - Brazil, Russia, India and China. South Africa came in shortly after.

Today, Brics has expanded to include Iran, as well as the United Arab Emirates and Ethiopia. Indonesia joined in January, and Thailand and Malaysia are waiting to be let in, one of several "partner countries" that have lined up to join.

In time, it is not inconceivable that Brics can indeed come to be regarded as a counterweight to the Group of 7 industrialised nations. Some in the West concede the potential.

"What if these countries suddenly decided to do more than hold symbolic annual summits?" former UK commercial secretary to the Treasury Jim O'Neill mused recently. "Instead of dictating the terms for projects in countries participating in its Belt and Road Initiative, China could start offering them low- or zero-tariff trade and investment. Together with India - whose population is four times larger than America's - it could create the conditions for an explosion in global trade that excludes the US."