South Africa Hosts BRICS Drills in a Direct Snub to Western Hegemony

While the US carries out piracy on the high seas, snatching oil tankers like sweets from a shop, a very different naval story is unfolding off Africa’s Cape Town coast. 🌊🚢

Chinese, Russian, and Iranian warships are currently conducting a week-long joint naval drill in South African waters under the BRICS Plus framework, focused on maritime safety, anti-piracy training, and deeper military cooperation.

This exercise wasn’t conjured up overnight; it was planned last year, but its launch comes at the exact moment geopolitical tensions are spiking, largely because the United States has been aggressively intercepting and seizing oil tankers linked to Venezuela and its trading partners in the Caribbean and Atlantic.

That crackdown, part of a broader US blockade and interdiction campaign, has resulted in multiple seizures of tankers, including one reflagged under Russia, and is seen by opponents as a blatant assertion of control over Venezuelan oil exports.

What you’re seeing now is more than a drill. It’s a signal from Beijing, Moscow and Tehran that the global naval balance is shifting, that alliances go beyond Western security umbrellas, and that countries outside the old NATO-centric order are willing to show muscle and mutual support on the high seas.

The maritime exercise is taking place off the coast of South Africa. South Africa is a founding member of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa), joining in 2010, and remains a key part of the group, which has since expanded to include more countries like Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. BRICS serves as an intergovernmental forum for leading emerging economies to coordinate policies and challenge Western-dominated global institutions.

This matters because it’s tied directly to US foreign policy choices. While Washington seizes tankers and flexes military muscle in the Americas, rival powers are positioning themselves strategically, cultivating influence and practical cooperation in key maritime regions. That’s not abstract geopolitics, that’s the new rough-and-tumble of 21st century power. 🌍⚓

Paul Knaggs

Editor & founder of Labour Heartlands. 𝙁𝙧𝙚𝙚𝙗𝙤𝙧𝙣 𝙀𝙣𝙜𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙝 𝙍𝙖𝙙𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙡 𝙎𝙤𝙘𝙞𝙖𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙩. Citizen journalist and veteran writing from the working-class coalface challenging the corruption, liberal elitism, and political complacency that dominate Britain today. Dyslexic but driven… I write because silence serves the powerful. Defender of free speech, civil liberties, and real democracy. Committed to an open, accountable democracy, not the manufactured version handed down from party machines, think tanks, or the Westminster bubble.