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Saturday, November 29, 2008

Russian Academic Predicts Break-Up of US

Russian wishful thinking or plausible prediction?

From Novosti

MOSCOW, November 24 - A leading Russian political analyst has said the economic turmoil in the United States has confirmed his long-held view that the country is heading for collapse, and will divide into separate parts.

Professor Igor Panarin said in an interview with the respected daily Izvestia published on Monday: "The dollar is not secured by anything. The country's foreign debt has grown like an 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."

The paper said Panarin's dire predictions for the U.S. economy, initially made at an international conference in Australia 10 years ago at a time when the economy appeared strong, have been given more credence by this year's events.

When asked when the U.S. economy would collapse, Panarin said: "It is already collapsing. Due to the financial crisis, three of the largest and oldest five banks on Wall Street have already ceased to exist, and two are barely surviving. Their losses are the biggest in history. Now what we will see is a change in the regulatory system on a global financial scale: America will no longer be the world's financial regulator."

When asked who would replace the U.S. in regulating world markets, he said: "Two countries could assume this role: China, with its vast reserves, and Russia, which could play the role of a regulator in Eurasia."

Asked why he expected the U.S. to break up into separate parts, he said: "A whole range of reasons. Firstly, the financial problems in the U.S. will get worse. Millions of citizens there have lost their savings. Prices and unemployment are on the rise. General Motors and Ford are on the verge of collapse, and this means that whole cities will be left without work. Governors are already insistently demanding money from the federal center. Dissatisfaction is growing, and at the moment it is only being held back by the elections and the hope that Obama can work miracles. But by spring, it will be clear that there are no miracles."

He also cited the "vulnerable political setup", "lack of unified national laws", and "divisions among the elite, which have become clear in these crisis conditions."

He predicted that the U.S. will break up into six parts - 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 large Native American populations; and the northern states, where the influence from Canada is strong.

He even suggested that "we could claim Alaska - it was only granted on lease, after all."

On the fate of the U.S. dollar, he said: "In 2006 a secret agreement was reached between Canada, Mexico and the U.S. on a common Amero currency as a new monetary unit. This could signal preparations to replace the dollar. The one-hundred dollar bills that have flooded the world could be simply frozen. Under the pretext, let's say, that terrorists are forging them and they need to be checked."

When asked how Russia should react to his vision of the future, Panarin said: "Develop the ruble as a regional currency. Create a fully functioning oil exchange, trading in rubles... We must break the strings tying us to the financial Titanic, which in my view will soon sink."

Panarin, 60, is a professor at the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and has authored several books on information warfare.

6 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Big yawn...

Europeans have been proclaiming the end is near for the USA since 1776.

Just about everything Panarin mentions is projecting Russian problems on the USA. If any large country is at risk of breaking up it is Russia with it's 100+ ethnic homelands.

11:50 AM  
Blogger peterquixote said...

USA is breaking up now Trevor, keep watching,

4:20 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Of the five super(or potential)powers, USA, Russia, China, EU and India, the USA is by far the least likely to break up.

If anything was going to break it up though, it would be a financial crisis coupled with the religious extemism the Republican's have been fermenting in the South.

5:38 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

the soviet union (which has existed since 1917) is negotiating a new deal with the us where a USSA is created obama is negotiating the deal now with the help of mccain and hillary in nz the national-act red government is happy about the deal because it will open up communist trade with the new supersuperpower. rodney hide said on the radio yesterday that communism and world government are the future. roll on the new freedom party.

4:31 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Russians always over-emphasize race (or "the national question" in old Soviet speak). The fact that he highlights the primary ethnicity of each possible future region of the US is a dead giveaway that he is, indeed, projecting too much of a Russian mindset onto things.

6:14 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Russia would be more wise to sell much of Siberia to the U.S.A., then we could have a contiguous area in Asia that could be developed much faster. The environmental safeguards would be 21st Century and the Russian people would have a democracy to expatriate to when Islam takes the several ethnic regions over.

2:46 AM  

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