US, we have only got until 2010, enjoy while it lasts

[Kratos]

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.


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.

http://sec.online.wsj.com/article/SB...709638419.html

[spywizard]

naw.. 2012 yes.. but not 2010.. he's early..

[MuscleScience]

i think It will take a much longer time, maybe fifty years or so. Our own governments move to more multinational type central power is increasingly evident. I just hope that we can change course before what we have fought for the last 200 plus years is not in vain.

Step one would be to rid this nation of the Patriot Act, which tip toes the line of the constitution at best.

[T_Own]

interesting philosophy, but what does a russian audience matter with regards to an american civil issue? i'm a little lost on the relevance of that.

and i doubt just because my mom lost a lot of money in the market, i'll get up in arms and join the north. i see no way at all a civil war could come from this as its not a problem caused by PART of the country. its the WHOLE country. unless we plan to take wall street by gunpoint, its a nationwide problem.

when oil gets to be the prices it is in europe, i'll believe the US is in bigger trouble

[eliteforce]

Texas will fall under mexican influence..not likly, independent texas would still have a larger economy than mexico.. but he is probably right about an eventual breakup, American states are not doing well under the current military/foreign policy dominated economic system, especially in terms of infrastructure when you compare them to europe or asia, eventually people will see that they're being screwed and will want a better government that is more concerned with their problems, not Iraq's or Ukrain's. The part about states falling under foreign influence is very Roman era-ish, like back then when the empire fell the whole place would fall apart and Germanic invaders would come into Rome and smash the aquaducts.. I think more likely americans will opt for a system more like the EU-where some things are centralized but a much looser union so states can have more transparency and control over the tax money that is collected, and their will no longer be a single military.

[gst528i]

The year is to early. It may happen eventually but no this soon. We are still big on AMERICA and Patriotism as AMERICANs IS there. America still comes together when an issue comes up. When that stops happening thats when we are going to have issues.

[MuscleScience]

Texas will fall under mexican influence..not likly, independent texas would still have a larger economy than mexico.. but he is probably right about an eventual breakup, American states are not doing well under the current military/foreign policy dominated economic system, especially in terms of infrastructure when you compare them to europe or asia, eventually people will see that they're being screwed and will want a better government that is more concerned with their problems, not Iraq's or Ukrain's. The part about states falling under foreign influence is very Roman era-ish, like back then when the empire fell the whole place would fall apart and Germanic invaders would come into Rome and smash the aquaducts.. I think more likely americans will opt for a system more like the EU-where some things are centralized but a much looser union so states can have more transparency and control over the tax money that is collected, and their will no longer be a single military.

Thats how the US was originally suppose to be. The federal government wanted more power and slowly took it. The same will happen to the EU. Eventually the members states will have as much sovereignty as Rhode Island has in our union.

[youngNhungry]

I doubt if it will happen exactly as the Russian pruposed but, lets face it all the great super powers fall. Power/wealth aquisition and sustinance go in cyclical patterns. It will happen the same for the US. I consider my self to be patriotic but, the rise and fall of power are natural. The US will eventually meet the same fate but, I hope its not in my lifetime. I don't want to be around when the crap hits the fan.

[eliteforce]

no I think the trend is the opposite, the French would never allow that much foreign influence and would never give up their own military-w/o that Europe will never become a single superstate..

If in 2 years, Obama/Democrats still havn't gotten out of Iraq or shows no sign of stopping the billions the US is spending there and Afghanistan(which he is increasing the commitment to) and the economy is still in recession with high unemployment--even as the government can find enough money to pay for these wars..thats the kind of thing that will start people looking at a more progressive political movement-which goal is to end the 2 party system in which both parties have the same policies.. something like that will get america on the path or real reform.

Thats how the US was originally suppose to be. The federal government wanted more power and slowly took it. The same will happen to the EU. Eventually the members states will have as much sovereignty as Rhode Island has in our union.

[MuscleScience]

no I think the trend is the opposite, the French would never allow that much foreign influence and would never give up their own military-w/o that Europe will never become a single superstate..

If in 2 years, Obama/Democrats still havn't gotten out of Iraq or shows no sign of stopping the billions the US is spending there and Afghanistan(which he is increasing the commitment to) and the economy is still in recession with high unemployment--even as the government can find enough money to pay for these wars..thats the kind of thing that will start people looking at a more progressive political movement-which goal is to end the 2 party system in which both parties have the same policies.. something like that will get america on the path or real reform.

It was my understanding the French were wanting to be the dominate power of the EU. The EU would be merely the extension of French power. They would control and dominate the EU and eventually be the overriding power if you will, this would take many years of course.

I could be way off on this I have had my head buried in science books the past few years and have not been able to keep up on the world political theater as much as I wanted.

[Odpierdol_sie!]

Id imagine the Prof. who predicted this was using a model that is taken from 'how the USSR fell during the cold war'.

Now we have the possibility of a new cold war era upon us. Surely its a wise idea to be rallying all your constituents/commrades by building their confidence on the fact that the possible opposing nation has an over inflated under valued economy that is littereally crippling the western world.

[Kratos]

I think some of the science is based on wishful thinking.