Part One: Aside From the United States, the G7 Is Losing Ground to BRICS+
By Weekly Voice Editorial Staff The debate over whether BRICS+ is overtaking the G7 is often reduced to a contest between two blocs. That framing, however, hides the most important reality. The G7 …
+ is overtaking the G7 is often reduced to a contest between two blocs. That framing, however, hides the most important reality. The G7 remains globally dominant in several critical areas largely because the United States is part of it. Remove the United States from the calculation, and the remaining G7 countries look far less capable of matching the demographic scale, economic momentum, military weight and technological ambition of the expanding BRICS+ group. BRICS+ now represents roughly 45 per cent of the world’s population and about 35 per cent of global economic output, depending on how GDP is measured. The G7 accounts for only about 10 per cent of the world’s population. That demographic difference is not merely symbolic. Population size affects labour supply, domestic consumption, military recruitment, industrial capacity and long term economic growth. The contrast becomes even sharper when the United States is separated from the rest of the G7. Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Japan remain wealthy and highly developed countries, but most are aging rapidly. Their workforces are growing slowly or shrinking, while pension and healthcare obligations are increasing. India, by comparison, is still benefiting from a large and relatively young population, while several other BRICS+ countries retain significant demographic and resource advantages. The G7 has also experienced a long term decline in its share of global trade. Its share of global exports of goods and services fell significantly between 1980 and 2021, while the BRICS+ share expanded. This does not mean that G7 countries are becoming poor. It means that the rest of the world is producing, consuming and trading far more than it did when Western economies dominated nearly every major global market. Again, the United States is the exception that protects the broader G7 narrative. The American economy remains enormous, innovative and unusually resilient. It controls the world’s most important financial markets, leads in high value technology and attracts capital, talent and companies from around the world. Without the United States, the remaining G7 members would still be rich, but their combined geopolitical influence would be considerably smaller. Military power follows a similar pattern. The G7 collectively spends more on defence than BRICS+ and maintains significant technological superiority in areas such as advanced aircraft, naval systems, intelligence, satellites and precision weapons. Yet much of that advantage comes from the United States, which accounts for the majority of G7 military spending and provides the alliance structure that connects North America, Europe and parts of Asia. Britain and France remain nuclear powers, while Japan, Germany, Italy and Canada possess advanced militaries and defence industries. However, none of them can independently project power on the scale of the United States. Without American logistics, intelligence, weapons systems, command structures and security guarantees, the military balance between the G7 and BRICS+ would look much less favourable to the West. Artificial intelligence provides perhaps the clearest example. It would be inaccurate to argue that the G7 lacks AI dominance when the United States remains the most powerful AI country in the world. American companies lead in frontier models, advanced semiconductors, cloud computing, data centre capacity, private investment and global software platforms. However, that is primarily American dominance, not evenly distributed G7 dominance. Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Japan all have important researchers, companies and national AI strategies, but none currently matches the scale of the American ecosystem. China, meanwhile, is rapidly expanding its position in AI research, patents, industrial deployment, robotics and lower cost model development. The rest of the G7 therefore depends heavily on American technology. Its universities contribute research and its companies develop valuable applications, but the underlying computing infrastructure, chips, cloud platforms and leading models are disproportionately controlled by American firms. Without the United States, the G7 would not hold a decisive advantage over China in artificial intelligence. BRICS+ still faces major weaknesses. It is not a military alliance, a unified market or a politically coherent federation. China and India are strategic competitors. Russia’s economic position has weakened relative to China and India. Member states have different relationships with the West, different currencies and conflicting foreign policy priorities. The G7 is far more cohesive. Its members are connected through long standing alliances, shared financial institutions, established diplomatic channels and broadly compatible political and economic systems. The group can coordinate sanctions, security policy and financial action more effectively than BRICS+. That institutional trust remains a major advantage. Yet even this cohesion relies heavily on American leadership. The United States provides the reserve currency, the largest capital markets, the strongest military and the most influential technology companies. It is difficult to imagine the G7 functioning as a comparable global power centre without Washington at its core. The most accurate conclusion is not that BRICS+ has already replaced the G7. It has not. The G7 still possesses greater per capita wealth, more sophisticated financial systems, stronger military technology and deeper institutional coordination. However, most of that superiority becomes far less convincing once the United States is removed from the equation. The G7 is losing the argument over size. BRICS+ has more people, more resources and a growing share of global production and trade. The G7 still holds many of the world’s most advanced institutions and technologies, but its claim to superiority rests disproportionately on one country. That creates the defining geopolitical question of the coming decades. Can the United States continue carrying the strategic weight of the entire Western bloc, or will the widening demographic and economic power of BRICS+ eventually overwhelm the advantages of wealth, technology and institutional experience?The G7 is not disappearing. Its relevance is being renegotiated. But aside from the United States, it is increasingly difficult to argue that the group represents the unquestioned centre of global power. In Part Two, Weekly Voice examines whether the proposed C5 could become a more realistic global power forum than the G7, BRICS+ or the United Nations Security Council.