It’s the end of the world as we know it

At least according to Igor Panarin, a Russian academic quoted in in this ariticle from the Wall Street Journal.

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.

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.

And we all know that Russia has been the model state for promoting peace and stability throughout the world. Just ask a Georgian.

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.

Heh. I guess Sarah Palin will be able to see Russia from her front porch after all.

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.

Well, the current People’s Republic of California is already more communistic/socialist than China, so that part seems like a good fit. Texas a part of Mexico? But what claim does Mexico have on Texas for crissakes. And oh yeah, remember the Alamo?

Canada will “grab” a group of northern states? With what, the RCMP? I have much respect for my Canadian cousins, but last I looked they don’t have the military capacity to grab their ass with both hands. I suspect a combined force of deer hunters from Michigan and Wisconsin could pretty much conquer all of the Great White North over a long weekend. Well, except for Alberta. Those guys are still scary tough.

From what I’ve heard, Hawaii is already pretty much a vassal of Japan and New England has my blessings if it wants to join the EU. Them damn Yankees are way to European in their thinking anyway. Who needs ’em?

“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.

It’s all about the oil. No blood for oil!

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.

I know I’m taking this seriously. Who in the hell is going to pay my federal pension after the breakup? THIS WILL NOT STAND!!!!

Professor Panarin provides this helpful post-apocalypse map so we can all study up on our U.S. geography. Oh wait, we never studied the old geography. Ignorant Americans!

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Since I’m scheduled to be in Korea until January 2011 I guess I’ll miss all the excitement. Good luck, y’all.

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