Meanwhile I came across the following story from the Wall Street Journal that more or less announces that which I've been saying all along...all except for the new demarcation lines (see map in article) once we are divided. I don't believe that for a moment! The American people are too smart and will revolt before they let that happen. ~ Norman E. Hooben (ps: I've taken the liberty to inject a video where appropriate to solidify the Professor's statement. Also, I had made earlier predictions but the last one was here: A Glimpse At History And A Prediction)
By ANDREW OSBORN
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.
Write to Andrew Osborn at andrew.osborn@wsj.com
And this was sent to me earlier ...
From a friend who is retired military and Civil Service. Another voice heard, time will tell. Glad I had a few retirement years. The Fall Of America Russian Professor Igor Panarin has stated that certain events that are occurring in the United States is actually confirming his doomsday forecast for the US: collapse. Igor Panarin, doctor of political sciences and professor of the Russian Diplomatic Academy Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told reporters and journ alists, after unveiling his new book, that the United States is in the beginning of its demise and that its collapse could occur within the next two months, according to Russia Today. 'Obama is “the president of hope”, but in a year there won’t be any hope. He’s practically another Gorbachev he likes to talk but hasn’t really managed to do anything. Gorbachev at least had been a secretary of a regional communist party administration, whereas Obama was just a social worker. His mentality is totally different. He’s a nice person and talks nicely – but he’s not a leader and will take America to a crash. When Americans understand that – it will be like a bomb explosion.' For more than a decade now, Panarin has been forecasting the collapse and disintegration of the United States and, like many economic analysts these days such as Jim Rogers and Peter Schiff, the utter devaluation of the US Dollar. Last year he stated, according to a report by Rianovosti, 'The dollar is not secured by anything. The country's foreign debt has grown like an20 avalanche, even though in the early 1980s there was no debt. By 1998, when I first made my prediction, it had exceeded $2 trillion. Now it is more than 11 trillion. This is a pyramid that can only collapse.' Also, the recent Japanese elections further show, at least to Panarin, that the financial disaster is imminent in the United States. As well, China would dump the US dollar in massive amounts and the Russian Federation would begin to sell their oil and gas for Roubles. 'Today I received another confirmation that the collapse of the dollar and the US is inevitable. Japan’s Democratic Party won the election, and I’d like to remind you that its leader [Yukio Hatoyama] has the snubbing of the dollar among his economic plans. In plainer words, he plans to transfer Japan’s monetary reserves from US dollars into another currency. The move will seriously accelerate the dollar’s exchange slump as early as this November. Disintegration will follow shortly.' In another frightening prediction for America, he sees the US separating into four parts, quite similar to the Civil War in 1865, 'The Pacific coast, with its growing Chinese population; the South, with its Hispanics; Texas, where independence movements are on the rise; the Atlantic coast, with its distinct and separate mentality; five of the poorer central states with their large20Native American populations; and the northern states, where the influence from Canada is strong.' Panarin thinks the east coast will be taken over by the European Union, the Pacific coast will be controlled by the Chinese, northern and mid-west states will be dominated by Canada and the south will be owned by Mexico. 'In my opinion, the probability of the US ceasing to exist by June, 2010 exceeds 50%. At this point, the mission of all major international powers is to prevent chaos in the US.' |
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