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.
Article Comment by:Russel Longcore
Could the US Government collapse? Well, it seems that a distinguished Russian thinker believes it will collapse soon.
Prof. Igor Panarin, 50, is a former KGB analyst, and is Dean of the Russian Foreign Ministry's academy for future diplomats. He regularly appears in the media as an expert on U.S.-Russia relations.
Panarin was an analyst during the 1990s when his own country, the USSR, collapsed. So, he has a perspective that must be seriously considered.
He based his predictions on demographic, economic and financial data that he says will trigger a political and societal crisis in the US. He believes that soon, wealthier states will stop sending funds to the Federal Government and secede from the Union. He also predicts that these events will trigger a civil war. He forecasts that the US states will band together along ethnic lines and that foreign nations will wield significant influence in these new confederacies.
His prediction is that California will be the key state in a "California Republic," comprised of mainly states west of the Rocky Mountains. Texas will be the key state in "The Texas Republic," which looks like a recreation of the Confederate States of America. He thinks that the states of the Atlantic Seaboard will become another confederation, and the remaining states in the center of the US will become the Central North American Republic. He also believes that Hawaii and Alaska will go independent.
Panarin also ascribes foreign influence to each republic. He predicts European influence in the Atlantic, Mexican influence in the Texas Republic, Canadian influence in the Central North, and Chinese/Japanese influence in California and Hawaii, and Russian influence in Alaska.
I like his notion of the various Confederacies, although I think one of his grouping is inaccurate. For example, he groups Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, North and South Carolina in the Atlantic Republic. These are states of the old South, and were part of the Confederacy of the 1860s. They have a history of independence and free thought. I believe these three states would ally with the Texas Republic.
I also believe that there could be a fracturing within the Atlantic Republic. Because of the Free State Movement in New Hampshire, I believe that a Maritime Republic could consist of New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine.
When Panarin predicts civil war resulting from secession, I sadly agree. The US Federal Government will not accept secession from any states, individually or en masse. So, Washington will likely rush troops to the seceding states to try to prevent the inevitable. The fighting may be short-lived, but will likely be intense.
But, an unknown and unpredictable x-factor exists: Would US military personnel make war upon their fellow citizens?
If 1861 is any indication of the future, then I would say that soldiers would fight their own neighbors. But today is not 1861. It's a coin toss in 2009.
Panarin give his predictions, and the future of America, about a 50/50 shot. Whether you believe the possibility of his predictions or not, you should begin to prepare for a major societal disruption. If the predictions are wrong, you've spent some money on preparations that you can consume over time. However, if the predictions are correct, you could be saving your own life.
and lol @ the west coast being owned by china
