Breakup of U. S. prediction discussed on CNN
CNN Newsroom -- January 1, 2009
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2008, a rough year for the United States, and one Russian professor says things are about to get a lot worse. The former KGB analyst says the U.S. will break up next year, and it's a prediction that has made him the toast of Russian media. Here's senior international correspondent Matthew Chance.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): An economy in freefall, unpopular wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and growing hardships at home as recession bites. As if things weren't bad enough, now one Russian professor is predicting the imminent break-up of the United States.
PROF. IGOR PANARIN, POLITICAL THEORIST (through translator): I got the idea that the United States could disintegrate in the summer of 1998. I should admit that I was quite surprised to have come to this conclusion. Up until I started analyzing, I no idea that the U.S. had this disintegration tendency.
CHANCE: In brief, Panarin predicts that by despite 2010, the U.S. will break into pieces, including new republics centered on states like California and Texas. The eastern states will join the European Union, he says. Canada will grab a handful in the north, while Alaska would return to Russian rule. It's all the end result of a fractious civil war triggered, says Panarin, by moral and economic degradation and immigrants. (on camera): It may be just a crackpot theory. We have no real scientific research to back it up. But what's fascinating is how it's being received here in Russia. The Kremlin has long blamed the United States for everything, from instability in the Middle East to the global financial crisis. And this apocalyptic vision of America's future is suddenly being embraced.
(voice-over): Professor Panarin, a former KGB analyst who heads Russia's diplomatic academy, regularly appears as a U.S. commentator on Russian television and in national newspapers. Analysts say his high profile reflects anti-American sentiment here.
SERGEI KARAGANOV, POLITICAL ANALYST: Of course, a lot of people in the world, including in this country, would like the United States to fall apart because it has been too mighty or -- and because it is -- it looks now that it is -- it is losing.
CHANCE: But Panarin says he's being proved right by events.
PANARIN (through translator): We're seeing indicators like the collapse of the Wall Street banks, a mortgage crisis in the USA, as well as a number of various domestic problems. Even five years ago, many of those problems didn't exist, and most people didn't believe my ideas. But today, when America has shown its vulnerability, people have started to take them more seriously.
CHANCE: And in a country like Russia, which has huge problems of its own, the demise of the United States its old enemy, is proving a powerful distraction. Matthew Chance, CNN, Moscow.
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