The United States? Not after 2010, a Russian predicts

http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadlin...nited-stat.html

12/31/2008

If you think next year is going to be bad, just wait until the summer of 2010. A Russian scholar predicts that's when the United States becomes the Untied States, disintegrating into six pieces that will then align with other global powers.

The Wall Street Journal carries the tale of dire prognostication by Igor Panarin, who has been predicting the U.S. demise for a decade.

What will bring about the U.S. disintegration? Mass immigration, economic decline and moral degradation. That will ignite a civil war next fall and the collapse of the dollar. Panarin foresees the breakup in late June or early July 2010.

According to the story's accompanying map, he believes that Alaska will revert to Russian control; "Atlantic America" would join the European Union; "The Central North-American Republic" would become part of Canada; "The Texas Republic" reverts to Mexico; "The California Republic" falls under Chinese control or influence; and Hawaii goes either to China or Japan.

The Journal writes:

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.