Russian Analyst Claims Breakup of the US is likely.

[stephendare]

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB123051100709638419.html

MOSCOW -- For a decade, Russian academic Igor Panarin has been predicting the U.S. will fall apart in 2010. For most of that time, he admits, few took his argument -- that an economic and moral collapse will trigger a civil war and the eventual breakup of the U.S. -- very seriously. Now he's found an eager audience: Russian state media.
[Prof. Panarin]

Igor Panarin

In recent weeks, he's been interviewed as much as twice a day about his predictions. "It's a record," says Prof. Panarin. "But I think the attention is going to grow even stronger."

Prof. Panarin, 50 years old, is not a fringe figure. A former KGB analyst, he is dean of the Russian Foreign Ministry's academy for future diplomats. He is invited to Kremlin receptions, lectures students, publishes books, and appears in the media as an expert on U.S.-Russia relations.

But it's his bleak forecast for the U.S. that is music to the ears of the Kremlin, which in recent years has blamed Washington for everything from instability in the Middle East to the global financial crisis. Mr. Panarin's views also fit neatly with the Kremlin's narrative that Russia is returning to its rightful place on the world stage after the weakness of the 1990s, when many feared that the country would go economically and politically bankrupt and break into separate territories.

A polite and cheerful man with a buzz cut, Mr. Panarin insists he does not dislike Americans. But he warns that the outlook for them is dire.

"There's a 55-45% chance right now that disintegration will occur," he says. "One could rejoice in that process," he adds, poker-faced. "But if we're talking reasonably, it's not the best scenario -- for Russia." Though Russia would become more powerful on the global stage, he says, its economy would suffer because it currently depends heavily on the dollar and on trade with the U.S.

Mr. Panarin posits, in brief, that mass immigration, economic decline, and moral degradation will trigger a civil war next fall and the collapse of the dollar. Around the end of June 2010, or early July, he says, the U.S. will break into six pieces -- with Alaska reverting to Russian control.

In addition to increasing coverage in state media, which are tightly controlled by the Kremlin, Mr. Panarin's ideas are now being widely discussed among local experts. He presented his theory at a recent roundtable discussion at the Foreign Ministry. The country's top international relations school has hosted him as a keynote speaker. During an appearance on the state TV channel Rossiya, the station cut between his comments and TV footage of lines at soup kitchens and crowds of homeless people in the U.S. The professor has also been featured on the Kremlin's English-language propaganda channel, Russia Today.

Mr. Panarin's apocalyptic vision "reflects a very pronounced degree of anti-Americanism in Russia today," says Vladimir Pozner, a prominent TV journalist in Russia. "It's much stronger than it was in the Soviet Union."

Mr. Pozner and other Russian commentators and experts on the U.S. dismiss Mr. Panarin's predictions. "Crazy ideas are not usually discussed by serious people," says Sergei Rogov, director of the government-run Institute for U.S. and Canadian Studies, who thinks Mr. Panarin's theories don't hold water.

Mr. Panarin's résumé includes many years in the Soviet KGB, an experience shared by other top Russian officials. His office, in downtown Moscow, shows his national pride, with pennants on the wall bearing the emblem of the FSB, the KGB's successor agency. It is also full of statuettes of eagles; a double-headed eagle was the symbol of czarist Russia.

The professor says he began his career in the KGB in 1976. In post-Soviet Russia, he got a doctorate in political science, studied U.S. economics, and worked for FAPSI, then the Russian equivalent of the U.S. National Security Agency. He says he did strategy forecasts for then-President Boris Yeltsin, adding that the details are "classified."

In September 1998, he attended a conference in Linz, Austria, devoted to information warfare, the use of data to get an edge over a rival. It was there, in front of 400 fellow delegates, that he first presented his theory about the collapse of the U.S. in 2010.

"When I pushed the button on my computer and the map of the United States disintegrated, hundreds of people cried out in surprise," he remembers. He says most in the audience were skeptical. "They didn't believe me."

At the end of the presentation, he says many delegates asked him to autograph copies of the map showing a dismembered U.S.

He based the forecast on classified data supplied to him by FAPSI analysts, he says. He predicts that economic, financial and demographic trends will provoke a political and social crisis in the U.S. When the going gets tough, he says, wealthier states will withhold funds from the federal government and effectively secede from the union. Social unrest up to and including a civil war will follow. The U.S. will then split along ethnic lines, and foreign powers will move in.

California will form the nucleus of what he calls "The Californian Republic," and will be part of China or under Chinese influence. Texas will be the heart of "The Texas Republic," a cluster of states that will go to Mexico or fall under Mexican influence. Washington, D.C., and New York will be part of an "Atlantic America" that may join the European Union. Canada will grab a group of Northern states Prof. Panarin calls "The Central North American Republic." Hawaii, he suggests, will be a protectorate of Japan or China, and Alaska will be subsumed into Russia.

"It would be reasonable for Russia to lay claim to Alaska; it was part of the Russian Empire for a long time." A framed satellite image of the Bering Strait that separates Alaska from Russia like a thread hangs from his office wall. "It's not there for no reason," he says with a sly grin.

Interest in his forecast revived this fall when he published an article in Izvestia, one of Russia's biggest national dailies. In it, he reiterated his theory, called U.S. foreign debt "a pyramid scheme," and predicted China and Russia would usurp Washington's role as a global financial regulator.

Americans hope President-elect Barack Obama "can work miracles," he wrote. "But when spring comes, it will be clear that there are no miracles."

The article prompted a question about the White House's reaction to Prof. Panarin's forecast at a December news conference. "I'll have to decline to comment," spokeswoman Dana Perino said amid much laughter.

For Prof. Panarin, Ms. Perino's response was significant. "The way the answer was phrased was an indication that my views are being listened to very carefully," he says.

The professor says he's convinced that people are taking his theory more seriously. People like him have forecast similar cataclysms before, he says, and been right. He cites French political scientist Emmanuel Todd. Mr. Todd is famous for having rightly forecast the demise of the Soviet Union -- 15 years beforehand. "When he forecast the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1976, people laughed at him," says Prof. Panarin.

[thelakelander]

What a crazy prediction.  Based on his breakdown, he definately does not understand American culture.

[thelakelander]

If the country ever broke up, I think you would see a few states, like Florida and New York, split.   I just can't imagine Central/South Florida going in the same direction as Mississippi or Alabama.  Its also hard to imagine Deep South states like Kentucky, South Carolina or Tennessee aligning with the Northeast.  That mix is like gasoline and bleach.

[downtownparks]

I agree with Lake. Any hypothetical breakup would be far more likely that the states would group into smaller independent country-states. A New England, a Carolina Virgina. I think that there would be a Republic of California (its already a bigger economy than Mexico and Canada) but it would be independent, not under Chinese control.

Politically, Kentucky and Tennessee are still way more southern, and would likely end up as part of a southern union, not an Eastern Atlantic US nation.

It sounds like he his basing this on a gut feeling more than solid understanding of the US sociological, political, and economic make up.

[alta]

You've really outdone yourself this time Stephen!  I guess I should start exchanging my dollars for pesos. Hasta La Vista!

[thelakelander]

Its hard to imagine a place like San Francisco wanting the Chinese to tell them how many kids they can have or when they can log on to the internet.

[Midway ®]

China presently holds a pretty big mortgage on this country. Maybe they will call the loan?

[RiversideGator]

China needs us a lot more than we need China.

I think the idea that a break up of the US is imminent is farcical.  Perhaps at some point in the future, but 2010 is quite a stretch.

[BridgeTroll]

What this really shows is that this guy is no expert on russia - US relations and does not understand this country at all.  If the Kremlin relies on guys like this for analysis they are worse off than I thought...

[uptowngirl]

Good lord we would have to be pretty bad off to aling under mexico influence.... I agree with BT and Lake on this one!

[BridgeTroll]

Clearly we would throw our cards in with the Cubans...

[heights unknown]

This Russian Professors assertions are not crazy at all.  Anything could happen even what he predicts; but I disagree with the way it would happen or would unfold.  If it happens, this is the way I think it will happen:

1) The United States collapses economically and financially

2) The U.S. Government becomes crises oriented trying desperately to solve or defuse the economic and financial crises

3) The whole nation states become distrustful of Washington with numerous states threatening to secede from the Union.

4) In the meantime, martial law is enacted because riots break across much of the nation which includes looting, carnage, race riots, and gang wars.

5) The U.S. Military, or what's left of it tries desperately to maintain order but to no avail; Civil and local police and sheriff call on the military and the guard for help, but this does not stop the rampant riots, looting and other crimes.

6) In the past the U.S. always intervened in other countries when they couldn't solve their own domestic problems, now the international community, led by the United Nations and what's left of the U.S. government welcomes outside help in any way, shape or form

7) While the nation is preoccupied with internal problems, terrorists attacks are sparked in several major and mid-sized cities

As a result, most of the nation's infrastructure (economic, financial, political, etc.) is decimated with no one communicating as in the past; for unknown reasons, most of the nation's satellites are not working; rumors abound that numerous satellites have been disabled by Russian and Chinese attacks.

9) With little or no communications, barely a cohesive military, and no law and order, the nation is attacked; from the west coast by chinese and russian troops, from the South by Mexican troops with rumors of Chinese control over these troops.  The nation is trying despartely to fight off these invasions but to no avail.

This is what COULD happen; and if true, eventually, the nation would probably be taken over, yes, by foreign forces.  You people will think I'm crazy, and some of you will get angry regarding what I am about to say, but the only solution is to pray for our nation, and turn back to God with all of our hearts.  He (God) is who made us great and we have forgotten him and basically reject him as Lord and God over our nation.  If any of you think this is crazy or far feteched, then watch what happens in the coming months.  Pray for our nation.

Just remember, if we collapse in any way, shape or form, there will be a dominoe effect, in which if it starts, there will be no return to what we were.

Heights Unknown

[David]

Let us bow our heads in prayer to the flying spaghetti monster so that he may protect us.

All of this is a bit dramatic but I will agree with one point, which is anything can happen. There's a lot of "fall of America" conspiracy theories out there though. They've been around even in far more peaceful times in which the economy was florishing as well.

I think the root of this fear is because a lot of people are scared of what's going to happen to the country because a certain party is soon to be out of power...

That's just my take on things though.

[Shwaz]

This is exactly what the Russian Proffesor wants... everyone to start speculation and rumors among us of the U.S. collapsing into chaos.

Typical "war of the worlds" scenario

Our country has been through much worse and held together just fine

Russia has been through much worse times than we are currently enduring and even they held together for the most part.

This country will stay together if for only the sake of college football

[JaxByDefault]

Let us bow our heads in prayer to the flying spaghetti monster so that he may protect us.

RAmen.