I'm John Bess with Professor Avenales of the U.S. Army War College, Russian Flotilla

to Havana.

Nicaragua, striking coincidence.

Radio Havana, Cuba 24 hours ago.

Nicaragua proposes to Russia to join the BRICS group.

Nicaragua to the BRICS. Is that significant?

It's an interesting piece of rhetoric, John, it reminds you of

essentially the group from a perspective of U.S. national security that when we think of

of those actors that are dangerous not only because of their anti-democratic

credentials and in promoting various types of organized crime in other difficulties in the region.

When we think of Nicaragua, Venezuela, in Cuba, what I like to remind people is also they are what

I call threat hosts.

Those actors who are willing to allow the Russians, the Iranians and others that come in in ways that create hemispheric dilemmas.

The bricks are never going to bring Nicaragua in.

The reason that the bricks oftentimes want to bring actors in is

their scene as having money in international access and influence. That was why they were interested

in bringing in Saudi Arabia. Iran certainly for its oil money, Indonesia for international balance,

Zimbabwe, and others to have more Africa representation.

But to bring in more actors which are seen as marginalized actors without any real money that actually need your money, probably isn't going to happen.

But certainly Ortega would love to be part of that and further turn the bricks into a kind of anti-U.S. coalition, which

for most in the bricks, especially countries like India,

is exactly the type of thing that they don't want.

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