@DetroitDan we're probably not going to agree, but i think with respect to the kind of dynamics O'Neill mostly focuses on — that solidaristic BRICS could more effectively reform representation in the UN and other post-WWII institutions — I think quite the opposite. the consensus in the West now would kick RU off the security council and discount any assertions by China for its role vis-a-vis the Ukraine War. That may be right or wrong, but the polarization the war has provoked has made…

@DetroitDan reform of e.g. the UN both more urgent and less likely, as from all sides proposals will be evaluated in zero-sum terms across the lines of putative blocs. prior to the Ukraine War, most of the mainstream liberal West agreed in theory that post-WWII multinational institutions should be reformed to better reflect contemporary population and political heft. i think the mainstream liberal West would now make adherence, as the West sees and defines it, to the Universal Declaration...

@DetroitDan of Human Rights, prerequisite to any such reform, which, rightly or wrongly, will make it easy for the countries that are currently privileged to prevent change they will perceive as adverse...

@DetroitDan I do think the military challenge and resulting sanctions have accelerated, perhaps usefully as O'Neill suggests, financial multipolarity. I don't think that will look anything like a catastrophic collapse of the dollar, though. It portends mostly an end, for better and worse, of the United States' capacity to impose economic sanctions almost unilaterally. In a more financially multipolar world, effective sanctions will require near universal consensus.