Post Reply 
 
Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
America will be divided in Free States by 2010: Russian Economist & Ambassador
09-01-2009, 11:48 PM
Post: #1
America will be divided in Free States by 2010: Russian Economist & Ambassador
[Image: 9-1-2009_4048_1.gif]

http://www.jang.com.pk/010909
Find all posts by this user
Quote this message in a reply
09-01-2009, 11:56 PM
Post: #2
RE: America will be divided in Free States by 2010: Russian Economist & Ambassador
[Image: P1-AO116_RUSPRO_NS_20081228191715.gif]

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.

[Image: HC-GN187_Panari_BV_20081228131701.gif]
Igor Panarin


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.
Find all posts by this user
Quote this message in a reply
12-28-2010, 10:37 PM
Post: #3
RE: America will be divided in Free States by 2010: Russian Economist & Ambassador
[Image: 1101130916-1.jpg]
[Image: 1101130916-2.gif]



http://express.com.pk
Find all posts by this user
Quote this message in a reply
Post Reply 


Possibly Related Threads...
Thread: Author Replies: Views: Last Post
  Chinese Ambassador Engrossed To Invest In Automobiles Accessories LRE-Azan 0 4,386 11-07-2017 03:50 PM
Last Post: LRE-Azan
  Thursday, February 20, 2014 - Karachi—Danish Ambassador visited DHA City Site Karachi Salman 0 5,241 02-20-2014 01:52 PM
Last Post: Salman
  Cantonment areas to have signal-free roads Salman 0 5,610 12-21-2013 12:34 PM
Last Post: Salman
  CDA to ensure hassle-free process for auction of plots Salman 0 6,220 11-18-2013 12:22 PM
Last Post: Salman
  4 flyovers to make traffic signal-free Salman 0 4,710 11-27-2012 03:15 PM
Last Post: Salman
  Efforts urged to maintain Islamabad polio free Salman 0 3,670 10-06-2012 11:16 PM
Last Post: Salman
  204 applicants to get free 5-marla plots Salman 0 6,531 05-04-2012 12:51 PM
Last Post: Salman
  Jinnah Avenue to be made signal free Salman 0 5,387 05-01-2012 01:48 PM
Last Post: Salman
  City to be made dirt, polluted free Salman 0 4,474 04-27-2012 12:56 PM
Last Post: Salman
  French ambassador for promoting trade relations with Pakistan Salman 0 3,771 04-07-2012 12:42 PM
Last Post: Salman
  Nespak secured 110 projects in 2010-11 Salman 0 3,836 03-23-2012 12:10 PM
Last Post: Salman
  Gwadar: Mekraan Declared "Loadshedding Free" LRE 1 5,411 03-07-2012 11:56 PM
Last Post: LRE
  CM gives 30 days for a plan to make 20 main roads jam-free Lahore_Real_Estate 0 4,495 12-17-2011 12:37 PM
Last Post: Lahore_Real_Estate
  america bankrupt LRE 4 10,462 08-04-2011 02:06 AM
Last Post: LRE
  CM seeks plan for more signal-free corridors Lahore_Real_Estate 0 2,956 06-06-2011 02:26 PM
Last Post: Lahore_Real_Estate
  Tax free drive costs city heavy Lahore_Real_Estate 0 3,522 05-20-2011 12:00 PM
Last Post: Lahore_Real_Estate
  What Uzbek DID to america! LRE 0 4,018 03-23-2011 09:40 PM
Last Post: LRE
  CDA failed to carry out survey in 2010 Lahore_Real_Estate 0 3,693 02-14-2011 04:37 PM
Last Post: Lahore_Real_Estate
  2010 ‘one of worst’ years for natural disasters: UN Lahore_Real_Estate 0 3,570 01-25-2011 12:24 PM
Last Post: Lahore_Real_Estate
  2010 Glimpses LRE 1 4,486 01-02-2011 01:43 AM
Last Post: LRE

Forum Jump:


User(s) browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)