(Source: Wall Street Journal, December 29, 2008)

As if Things Weren't Bad Enough, Russian Professor Predicts End of U.S.

In Moscow, Igor Panarin's Forecasts Are All the Rage; America 'Disintegrates' in 2010


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.

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.

http://i149.photobucket.com/albums/s78/AL-B_photos/P1-AO116_RUSPRO_NS_20081228191715.gif





So...do you think this guy is on crack? Or does this actually sound possible?

Obviously the guy knows nothing about American culture.  There is no way in hell Kansas or Missouri would ever become part of Canada. ::)  Utah going to the Chinese, nope can't see it happening.

Wooo hooooo!  We get Iowa!  ;D

Just kidding.  By the way, he is smoking some ill dope.

;D

Another mug of vodka, comrade?

signature banned as well

Obviously the guy knows nothing about American culture.  There is no way in hell Kansas or Missouri would ever become part of Canada. ::)  Utah going to the Chinese, nope can't see it happening.


I agree.  Mexico takes nothing and south of the Mason-Dixon, I can see only eastern portions of Maryland and Virginia, along with D.C., joining the Northeastern Republic. 

I don't see a geographical disintegration of the U.S. until several generations of utter social and economic ruin.  Perhaps 2110 for your worst case scenario.  By the time the U.S. dissolves, I see the current population halved by civil war, famine, regional anarchy, mass emmigration,  rising infant mortiality, and diminished birth rates. 

The professor might look at his own country and ask why China has not consumed Siberia.  Speaking of which, there might be a Great Wall of Canada.  Perhaps as much as a quarter of New Englanders would like to join Canada right now, but Canada isn't nuts; they wouldn't want us!

The professor's geopolitical predictions might be crazy, but he's not.  Is the U.S. in a heap of trouble?  Oh yes she is!
:o

He's got it all wrong.

You see, what's really going to happen is all being orchestrated by Gov. Schwarzenegger.

Ahnold is going to pardon Charlie Manson, who will get back to work restarting Helter Skelter, the war between blacks and Whitey.  The blacks will align with Obama, and form a nation essentially east of the Mississippi.

Whitey will organize the Western states, calling itself Mansonia.  Its first President shall be Schwarzenegger.  He's in on ths because he otherwise could never become president of the United States of America.

A guy did a book about this a long time ago, I can't for the life of me remember his name or the name of the book, but it did have an interesting premise.

A guy did a book about this a long time ago, I can't for the life of me remember his name or the name of the book, but it did have an interesting premise.


Probably Dmitry Orlov.  Although his blog isn't updated as frequently as it used to be, last week's entry is telling. 

Here's a link to the original talk that brought Orlov into the blogosphere's spotlight, and here's the version from a presentation he gave last month.

Panarin raises some interesting points, but the timing (and his workding, and his background) is suspicious.  The big tell is that bit about Dana Perino's quote.  If he was seriously targeting a US or Russian audience of people whose opinions matter, he wouldn't have had to explain, because those people are already reading between the lines, and would have picked up on it.  But he didn't do that.  He spelled it out for everyone, so I conclude that he's targeting the US or Russian (more likely, the Russian) general public with his message, as part of his job.  I'm giving him 15% odds on being right, 15% on it being disinfo, and 70% Putinist propaganda designed to strengthen Medvedev's position back home.

Russia is currently hurting from the collapse in commodities prices much harder than we (Americans) are.  As much as I think the USDollar is ultimately toast, the US, as a political entity, remains a net exporter of food to the world.  If push came to shove, we could (whether as "The United States",  Panarin's five regions, or even as fifty independent States!) cease food exports to any nations (except each other), even if that meant that our currencies were worthless and the rest of the world ceased to sell us any of its oil.  We could continue to feed North America and Europe (albeit at a greatly-reduced standard of living) and much of the rest of the planet would quite literally starve to death.  The governments of Russia and China would collapse first.  Africa and the Middle East would be almost completely depopulated; and their mineral resources would be available for the taking, likely by European forces.  South America and Australia would muddle on through relatively unaffected.

As long I'm bagging on our former Cold War adversary, I'll balance this post out by giving them credit for playing a better strategic game than we've played this decade.  When Russia turns off the natural gas supply to the Ukraine tonight, we find out if the Ukraine caves in (most likely scenario), steals (oops, "borrows") some of the gas intended for Europe, or claims it's an act of economic war (unlikely, and legally unfounded - as much as it is an act of economic warfare, under the letter of the law, it's still a dispute between the Ukraine and a "commercial" entity that happens to be located in Russia, and that beats the outcome of an act of war committed against a NATO member by a non-NATO state.)

On balance, I'll take Orlov's analysis over Panarin's anyday.  We're just as doomed, it's just that Orlov is more interested in how and why, whereas Panarin's tongue-slip has made it pretty clear that his principal motivation is in promulgating a story that'll make Russians feel better about their rulers than we do about ours.  Nice trie, Comrade, but better luck next year.

We're going to divide into the Republic of Rationality and the Divine state of Jesusland. 
:P

We're going to divide into the Republic of Rationality and the Divine state of Jesusland.  :P


Both sides would probably be happy with that.  As an inhabitant of a RoR state that has both a net food surplus and which sends more money to Washington than it receives in return from the Federal government, we'd come out way ahead.

All of a sudden, Panarin doesn't look so crazy, does he?  That's why I give him 6:1 odds on being right.  Even if he is just trolling the West into writing his employer's propaganda for him.

Well, at least Palin will finally really be able to see Russia from her house :D

Why does reading this make me feel like I should see Vladimir Putin banging on a table with his shoe?

Why does reading this make me feel like I should see Vladimir Putin banging on a table with his shoe?


With a hole in the sole no doubt.

It will probably end in 2012.

It will probably be like this....

http://www.learner.org/interactives/historymap/images/states1_map_orig.gif

The 13 Colonies region will be heavily European
The Treaty of Paris region will hang on to the US moores
The Florida region will be Cuban influenced
The Louisiana Purchase will be like the Paris Region
The Red River Basin will be part of the Louisiana Purchase
The Texas Annexation will be heavily influenced by Texas
The Mexican Cession will be part of Mexico
The Gadsden Purchase will be part of Mexico too
The Oregon Treaty Region will be Pacific Influenced
Alaska and Hawaii will be Alaska and Hawaii.

Here are the Capitols and leaders....

Colonies-Washington DC, Barack Obama
Paris Treaty-Chicago, Mitt Romney
Florida-Miami, Jeb Bush
Louisiana-New Orleans, Ray Nagin
Texas-Dallas, George W. Bush
Mexico-Mexico City, Felipe Calderon
Oregon-Seattle, Arnold Schwarzenegger
Alaska-Juneau, Sarah Palin
Hawaii-Honolulu, the blood of the last Hawaiian Monarch 

^ I could live with that.  Except New York wants Florida back for next winter!
;)

^ I could live with that.  Except New York wants Florida back for next winter!
;)



;D ;D ;D



Cat

Well, at least Palin will finally really be able to see Russia from her house :D


The bridge to no where will be redesigned as a mass transit route to the mainland.  That could be progress on some level. :)

The bridge to no where will be redesigned as a mass transit route to the mainland.  That could be progress on some level. :)



You betcha.  ;)



Cat