"For a decade, Russian academic Igor Panarin has been predicting the U.S. will fall apart in 2010. 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."
Comments
How do you say "NUTS" in Russian?
This guy is certifiable. The US may well break up one day; no one should assume that is impossible. But think about this loon's theory-- Texas (!) will be part of Mexico in 12 months? Mexico? The entire north central US will come under the dominion of the far outnumbered Canadians? California under the Chinese Republic?
A more likely theory of "breakup" would have US states reverting to independent sovereign powers... which is an arrangement actually foreseen by the US constitution, but heavily suppressed since the Civil War. Individual states are now defining themselves in ways that reflect emergent national identities, morally, economically, etc. You can now experience culture shock between US states where 50 years ago there was only climate shock. Even so, don't expect to see a breakup in your lifetime.
The USSR broke up and left the US the sole world superpower (for now). A lot of Russians are sore about that. He's making a living with these ideas, which should tell us something about anti-American sentiment in Russia. But it sounds like the poor professor needs to travel a bit.