“It’s probably the most successful acronym of the last decade,” points Joaquim Ramos Silva, professor at Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestão, in Lisbon, and author of “Portugal / Brazil: A Decade of Expansion of Economic Relations, 1992-2002.”

Jim O’Neill coined the BRIC acronym in November 2001 in an article for the Global Economics series of Goldman Sachs, referring to four countries: Brazil, Russia, India and China. “I thought the global economy for decades to come would be driven by the growth of these four populous and economically ambitious countries,” refers the “father” of the concept in his latest book “The Growth Map – Economic Opportunity in the BRICs and Beyond,” published in late 2011, a decade after the famous article.

The acronym BRIC raised passions and criticisms. Some of the criticism came from economists and consultants of the countries that are part of the acronym.

The deputy director general of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the Indian economist Harsha Vardhan Singh, is an enthusiast: “The concept was introduced at the same time that negotiations on the Doha Development Round were launched by the WTO and China joined the organization. It was a very useful concept in several ways, including changing the perception on a subliminal level. It called the attention to the importance and the increasing presence of countries outside the OECD in the WTO, and in general, pointed out the immense potential of the developing countries. The perception of investors towards these economies improved.” Even from the standpoint of the WTO, Singh points out that “the construction of a coalition of such a diverse group, made possible to achieve the objectives, including in WTO negotiations and daily work.”

“The acronym was useful to draw attention to a brutal process of transformation that is happening in the world economy, where developing countries and, in particular, the BRICs, are gaining increasing importance”, points Ricardo Amorim, an economist and consultant, from Brazil. Constantino Xavier, a Portuguese researcher at Johns Hopkins University in Washington DC, who lived in India, notes that “the concept was actually useful for the West to discuss the ‘rise of the rest’ after the Cold War”.

Since 2001, several work teams at Goldman Sachs have been updating the forecasts on which each of the four economies would surpass the G7 rich economies.

Reality eventually surprised by the rise of China to second place before 2015 and the overtaking of Italy and UK by Brazil, long before 2025. China is, since 2010, the second biggest economy and Brazil, since 2011, is the sixth. O’Neill considers the two cases, the two most impressive stories of the last decade. India and Russia are also in 9th and 10th place, at a distance of 300 billion and 350 billion dollars of Italy and the UK. They would probably not need 2015 or 2020 to surpass these two European countries. Recently, Shubrah Gupta, in The Indian Express, noted that “the future is coming sooner than anticipated.”

In the meantime, since 2003, the four economies are responsible for 65% of the growth of the world economy. The push they made to the world trade can be appreciated by the impressive numbers of the period 1990 to 2009: exports of goods and services grew 86% in Russia, 176% in Brazil, 738% in India and 1993% in China. This export dynamics will remain, even if somehow cooled down from 2010 to 2016, according to forecasts: 34.7% from Russia , 79.6% from Brazil, 171% from India and 178% from China.

To Constantin Gurdgiev, the BRIC concept “is an amalgam of completely different realities in the political, cultural, institutional and economic plans” In terms of GDP per capita, or average wealth, it’s a group with extremes, with India on the base and Russia at the top of this pyramid. On one hand, we have economies dependent on exports of goods and regionally anchored, such as Russia and Brazil, mixed with a global trading power, the world’s factory, China, and a leader in the niche of international services, India.

There is a huge financial gap between China, which is the second largest net creditor to the world (after Japan), and Brazil, which is the fourth largest net debtor in the world after the U.S., Spain and Australia.

Michael Pettis, professor of financial markets at the University of Beijing, is even more scathing: “As a marketing tool for funds seeking capital it was helpful. But I do not think it means much more than that. I am very skeptical on the “inexorable” growth of the BRICs.”

To Ricardo Amorim, who is also the host of Manhattan Connection in Globo News, “the BRICs have common interests but also significant divergences of interests resulting from their economic and political differences. From a trade standpoint , for example, it is difficult to see them working in together, as India and China are major importers of raw materials while Brazil and Russia are major exporters.” Amorim believes that in the case of Brazil, the country “is not big enough to set global trends, and can only influence them marginally.”

The Portuguese researcher Constantino Xavier goes further on the concept criticism: “It is impossible to separate the sustainability of economic growth from the political issues and democratic governance. This may seem less apparent today as the West is deep into recession and the world needs the BRIC’s grow as fast as possible.” And he predicts: “But sooner or later there will be major challenges against the authoritarian models of Russia and China and democratic movements and complaints – against corruption and income inequality – in India or Brazil.”

Despite criticism, the vision of O’Neill and his team at Goldman Sachs led to three devastating consequences to the perception of world, as opposed to what it was a decade ago.

The BRIC concept came at a time when several analysts were suggesting that the terrorist attacks of September 11, had been a turning point. “The world has changed,” it was then said. And it came to be an inexorable rebirth of the “single” superpower.

But in reality, the world had already radically changed years before. The terrorist episode was just another sign of the great transformation occurred in which major players had nothing to do with terror networks or failed states.

This great geoeconomic and geopolitical transformation can be observed by three angles.

First: it seems that the capitalist revolution in China initiated by Deng Xiaoping in the late 1970s and later the fall of the Berlin Wall in late 1980, a new wave of globalization had been opened. These breaking moments did put an end to the first wave of globalization started by the Portuguese in the fifteenth century and that would see a succession of European empires or of European matrix ruling the world (the five power cycles, with Portugal, Netherlands, UK, (twice) and the United States) or trying to dominate it, but failing (Philip’s Spain, Napoleonic France, Wilhelmine Germany, then Hitler, and the USSR from the project of great power based on “socialism in one country” of Stalin).

The Third World was thrown out with the bath water. In the 1950s Alfred Sauvy saw it as “third state”, alternative to a world based on the balance of terror and the ideological and power struggle between two systems, capitalism and the “real socialism”.

Second: the “successful model” of the 1990s, the ‘tigers’ (of the Pacific or Europe) with high population density and small areas, gave way to the exuberance of the “whale-economies” in which the notion of “large spaces” as a source of power returns to the geoeconomy and geopolicy, stresses Andrew Martin, a professor of Political Geography at the University of Sao Paulo. For Joaquim Ramos Silva, professor at Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestão, (ISEG), in Lisbon, the emergence of these “whales” influences the environment in a larger scale than the “small fish”.

The enthusiasm on the “tigers” would give rise to other economic stories even more surprising, the ones of the BRICs, and particularly two cases: China and Brazil. To Jim O’Neill, these are the two big stories of our generation.

Third: the BRIC and other emerging economies of smaller dimension, have emerged as investors in advanced economies. “Since mid-1990 we are witnessing an unprecedented internationalization of investment flows, as well as the development of a robust trade between the countries of the ‘South’ and an investment flow dynamic between emerging and average income economies. This process was consolidated to the extent that the previous net recipients of the financial capital of the advanced economies, have paradoxically become the new essential investors in advanced economies”, emphasizes Constantin Gurdgiev.

Something surprising emerged. A McKinsey Global Institute study on financial markets in 2011 noted: “Contrary to the common perception that capital flows to emerging markets are highly volatile, we observe that flows between developed countries are more volatile. When adjusting for average size, capital flows to developed countries are 20% more volatile than flows to emerging markets.” If in 2000, foreign investment by emerging economies were only 6% of the total, a decade later it totalled 20%. A central element of this dynamic – which represents 61% – is the acquisition of foreign debt by central banks of emerging countries.

After the 2008 financial crisis and international recession, some were claiming the death sentence of the BRICs. “There were times when I thought of it” (the survival of the acronym), admits O’Neill. But the four countries revealed resilience in face of the Great Recession and spirit of “coopetition”, (cooperate and compete).

To Peter Drysdale, professor at The Australian National University, “it has become clear that these countries can collectively resist to Western impositions in the multilateral level. (…) The differences between them are much smaller than with the West. It is this co-dependency that provides the mortar of the BRICs” he concludes.

The crisis would bring an unexpected opportunity for the BRICs. “Their political pronouncement can be dated to the meeting that they had in Ekaterinburg, Russia, in June 2009,” Drysdale says. Jim O’Neill’s acronym suffered a radical change: it turned to political club. The picture of the presidents of Brazil, Russia and China with the Indian prime minister hand in hand, went around the world. “Whether in achieving its objectives at home as on a broader international level, the BRICs will evolve into a political club even stronger in the future. However, the number of members will certainly be flexible, with different permutations that may be deemed necessary,” expects Harsha Singh.

In face of the emergence of this club, the opinions of some economists surveyed are of enormous skepticism. Michael Pettis sees it as a fad. “At other times of economic weakness, we have heard with great excitement of new international political groupings. In the 1970s, for example, we heard of the growing power of the Arab bloc, then the Non-Aligned Movement, and the revival of Latin America, and so on. But politically they all had few interests in common, beyond the desire for a greater presence on the world stage. And all withered” concludes Pettis. Same opinion is shared by Ashutosh Sheshabalaya, author of “Rising Elephant”.

“There are differences within the group that really count. Each has its own specialization and went his own path of integration into the world economy. A consensus among them is no easy task. They also seem reluctant, each on its own or in group, to assume the responsibilities of the hegemony potential they have and openly challenge the incumbents. So, in the near future, they will advance step by step and probably not always as a group” refers Joaquim Ramos Silva. Constantino Xavier also has doubts on the effectiveness of the group: “It is unlikely that it becomes an effective cooperation. China and India are rivals and no member of the club is interested in joining against incumbent hegemonist, the United States.”

The group would eventually co-opt a new member, South Africa, in late December 2010. It was then time to switch the acronym to BRICS, adding the “S” for South Africa. One country that is not even included in Jim O’Neill’s “Next 11″, the group of 11 growth and emerging economies. “I find it hard to think of South Africa as a genuine BRIC or even as a growing economy. Its economy is half the size of Turkey or Indonesia”, he writes in “The Growth Map”. Clearly, the acronym gained life out of its initial concept.

The cooptation of South Africa generates, in fact, several reflections. In geopolitical terms, Ashutosh Sheshabalaya draws a thesis: “In view of the metrics used, the Club puts India on the sideline, making it a junior partner in the face of China. India is involved in another group, The India-Brazil-South Africa Dialogue Forum – IBSA – as a counterweight , adding India, Brazil and South Africa the way. That was the reason why China pulled South Africa to the club and rushed to rename the BRICs to BRICS at the end of December 2010″.

With another perspective, André Martin claims: “As a Brazilian, I prefer to say that Brazil, India, South Africa and Australia have a common condition of regional leaders that are emerging as the emerging powers of the Southern Hemisphere. And by “South” I don’t mean a strictly geographical space, but a geopolitical one with the once colonized countries that are not yet recognized by the UN as world powers”. André Martin (geopolitics professor) remains with a “binary model” truly broken between “North” and “South”. O’Neill’s triad has the declining “rich” (with the gradual peripheralization of Japan and Europe), the growing “whale-economies” (BRIC) and the “rest”.

This year the BRICS meeting will be in March in India.

Historically, four of the five country members of the BRICS had close ties with the globalization initiated by the Portuguese in the fifteenth century.