Policy Brief - The Strategic Significance of the Atlantic Basin and

The emerging coalition of the ‘Rest’7 is at least partly motivated by similar issues to those driving those earlier movements, including the neo-colonialism inherent in the Cold War strategies of the superpowers, the proxy wars they brought to the post-colonial world and a widespread desire across the Global South to avoid taking sides in the rivalries of the superpowers and the former colonial po. [...] When north and south assess the shifting balance of insecurity, much cultural and historical baggage will be revealed”.56 This shift in the assumptions of the North-South discourse will increase the capacity of the African diaspora¾which embraces the entire basin-----to augment and recast the stories, visions and perspectives previously predominant in the northern Atlantic. [...] Indeed, the opportunity for the southern Atlantic to strategically hedge the interests and influence emanating from the powers of Eurasia and the northern Atlantic through participation in both pan- Policy Brief - N° 01/24 - January 2024 17 Atlantic cooperation and the expansion and consolidation of BRICS Plus is actually an opportunity for the peoples and states of the southern Atlantic to have a. [...] How the southern Atlantic countries handle their relationships with the powers of Eurasia, on the one hand, and the powers of the northern Atlantic Plus on the other, particularly in the wake of the Declaration on Atlantic Cooperation and the expansion of the BRICS, will be key in determining exactly who gains most from the rising strategic value of the Atlantic basin, and of the southern Atlantic. [...] Isbell is the author of Energy and the Atlantic: The Shifting Energy Landscapes of the Atlantic Basin (2012); co-author and editor of The Future of Energy in the Atlantic Basin (2015), and of Energy and Transportation in the Atlantic Basin (2017).