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Title: Russian Professor Predicts Fall of U.S. in 2010
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URL Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123051100709638419.html
Published: Dec 29, 2008
Author: Andrew Osborn
Post Date: 2008-12-29 15:13:45 by christine
Keywords: None
Views: 439
Comments: 61
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.
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#6. To: christine (#0)
I notice something VERY WRONG with the secession pattern here. I can GUARANTEE you that S.C. will FIGHT to join the Southern segment rather than go into the Atlantic one. After all, they're the ones who started the fight the first time by firing on Fort Sumter. TN, KY and WV don't really belong in the Atlantic either.
As well Montana and Wyoming would likely go with the Republic of the Western United States. Colorado and New Mexico are as well are more Western than they are Central. Texas and California might go it alone or in alliance with the West. Texas is a bit of a Wild Card because although it went with the Confederacy in the First Civil War it has more in common with the culture of the West than of the South. One might well call Texas the eastern most state of the West. Alaska would be more likely to go with Canada as culturally they have more in common. Actually you could see a fracture with the Northeast being jettisoned by the South and West in unison. A lot of the West was settled by Confederates, such as some of my ancestors, fleeing "Reconstruction". So there is a lot of warmth and affection for the South in the West. My family is so "Old South" that we can thumb our noses at most of the snobs because we were here first (and I don't mean my Indian ancestors either). (BTW - The Cherokee Nation sided with the Confederacy and had their own Battle Flag.)
You are just a fount of information.
I am a tad olde to be moving and starting over again but I will move to a...majority white section...with a new constitution, one that has the first provision on how the government can be dissolved if the people so desire.
Don't we have that already in the Declaration of Independence?
Don't we have that already in the Declaration of Independence? By peaceable means Dahlink. Just as important, if not more so, is to establish a means to allow citizens to challenge unconstitutional actions short of taking up arms. A body senior to the Supreme Court which is responsible for enforcing the Constitution and nothing else. With the power to remove office holders from office for violating it. As well I would propose a third chamber in the Congress whose sole responsibility is to pass on the Constitutionality of any new law and which has veto authority over any law found contrary to a strict reading of the written Constitution ONLY. None of this "Stare Decisis" Bullshit where the Supreme Court refers to a previous bad decision to validate a current bad decision.
#33. To: Original_Intent (#30)
Yes I would love to see the SC act as intented by the framers and Congress themselves hold to their oath of office.
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#8. To: Sam Houston (#6)
#14. To: Original_Intent (#8)
(BTW - The Cherokee Nation sided with the Confederacy and had their own Battle Flag.)
#16. To: farmfriend (#14)
#27. To: Cynicom (#16)
with a new constitution, one that has the first provision on how the government can be dissolved if the people so desire.
#30. To: farmfriend, Cynicom (#27)
with a new constitution, one that has the first provision on how the government can be dissolved if the people so desire.
Replies to Comment # 30.
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