Russian Analyst Predicts Decline and Breakup of U.S. - November, 2008

Russian Analyst Predicts Decline and Breakup of U.S.

November, 2008

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.

Source: http://en.rian.ru/world/20081124/118512713.html


In other news:

Ex-Diplomat Says Georgia Started War With Russia

A parliamentary hearing on the origins of the war between Georgia and Russia in August ended in a furor on Tuesday after a former Georgian diplomat testified that Georgian authorities were responsible for starting the conflict. Erosi Kitsmarishvili, Tbilisi’s former ambassador to Moscow, testified for three hours before he was shouted down by members of Parliament. A former confidant of President Mikheil Saakashvili, Mr. Kitsmarishvili said Georgian officials told him in April that they planned to start a war in Abkhazia, one of two breakaway regions at issue in the war, and had received a green light from the United States government to do so. He said the Georgian government later decided to start the war in South Ossetia, the other region, and continue into Abkhazia. He would not name the officials who he said had told him about planned actions in Abkhazia, saying that identifying them would endanger their lives. American officials have consistently said that they had warned Mr. Saakashvili against taking action in the two enclaves, where Russian peacekeepers were stationed. Mr. Kitsmarishvili’s testimony in front of a parliamentary commission, shown live on Georgian television, met with forceful and immediate denials. One commission member, Givi Targamadze, threw a pen and then lunged toward Mr. Kitsmarishvili, but was restrained by his colleagues. The chairman of the commission, Paata Davitaia, said he would initiate a criminal case against Mr. Kitsmarishvili for “professional negligence.” Deputy Foreign Minister Giga Bokeria, who appeared on short notice to comment on Mr. Kitsmarishvili’s testimony, called the allegations “irresponsible and shameless fabrication,” and said they were “either the result of a lack of information or the personal resentment of a man who has lost his job and wants to get involved in politics.” Mr. Kitsmarishvili was fired in September by the president. Mr. Kitsmarishvili walked out amid the furor on Tuesday. “They don’t want to listen to the truth,” he told reporters. Russia and Georgia have each painted the other as the aggressor in the five-day war. Georgia said it launched an attack on the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali, because a Russian invasion was under way. Russia says it sent combat troops into the enclave to protect civilians and peacekeepers after Georgia’s offensive had begun. Russian forces drove deep into central Georgia, and remain in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which Moscow has formally recognized as independent nations. The hearings are part of an official Georgian inquiry, the full name of which is the Temporary Commission to Study Russia’s Military Aggression and Other Actions Undertaken With the Aim to Infringe Georgia’s Territorial Integrity. Many senior officials have already testified, and the president is scheduled to appear Friday. Mr. Kitsmarishvili had petitioned to appear, saying a refusal to hear him would show that the inquiry was hollow. In his comments, the former diplomat said that Mr. Saakashvili was responding to Russian provocation, but that he had long been planning to take control of the enclaves, which won de facto independence from Georgia in fighting in the early 1990s. Mr. Kitsmarishvili said the president aimed to start an offensive in 2004, but met with resistance from Western and other Georgian officials. Among the catalysts for the offensive, Mr. Kitsmarishvili said, was the belief that United States officials had given their approval. When he tried to verify that information with the American diplomats in Tbilisi, Mr. Kitsmarishvili said, he was told no such approval had been given.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/26/wo...html?ref=world

U.S. Presses NATO on Georgia and Ukraine

The United States has started an unexpected diplomatic initiative in Europe, urging NATO allies to offer Georgia and Ukraine membership in the alliance without going through a lengthy process and fulfilling a long list of requirements, NATO diplomats said. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has had long telephone conversations with French, German and other senior European envoys, asking them to agree to bypass the formal application process, the diplomats said. The proposal faces significant hurdles. At a NATO meeting in Bucharest, Romania, in April, the United States failed to persuade NATO to offer the usual application process, known as a membership action plan, to Ukraine and Georgia. Instead, NATO leaders agreed that one day each country would join, without committing to a timetable. Some NATO members have indicated an unwillingness to waive the formal process, which includes requirements that applicants reform their armed forces, separate civilian and military authority and create full transparency over command structures. France, Germany, Norway, Luxembourg, Spain, Italy and as many as four other countries opposed the idea at a meeting on Tuesday at NATO headquarters in Brussels. NATO foreign ministers are scheduled to meet next week. “The allies are discussing, literally right now, how to take forward NATO’s relationship with these two countries,” said James Appathurai, a NATO spokesman. The war between Russia and Georgia in August, with the collapse of the Ukraine government and deep divisions in Ukraine over joining NATO, had left many diplomats assuming that neither country would be offered membership via the action plan next week. Ms. Rice’s proposal has surprised diplomats. When NATO members, at their meeting in April, debated whether to bring Georgia and Ukraine closer to NATO, and how, they struggled to reach a compromise. Germany argued that it was not the right time to offer either country a membership action plan, because Russia vehemently opposed it. Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany said neither country was ready, and France, Italy, Spain and other members also opposed proceeding. Poland, the Baltic states, the Czech Republic and other members supported the United States’ position. As part of the Bucharest compromise, the members agreed to review the matter at the NATO foreign ministers’ meeting in Brussels in December. That history was among the reasons the latest American effort was met with surprise. “This is a real turnaround of the U.S. position,” said a senior NATO diplomat who requested anonymity because of the delicacy of the issue. “We reached a compromise in Bucharest after much haggling. Now, we are being asked to cancel it and effectively discard the MAP program. This is putting the unity and credibility of the alliance at stake.” In Washington on Tuesday, Daniel Fried, the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs, said the debate “took on a life of its own.” Mr. Fried said that the MAP process “was never an end in itself,” and that NATO ministers could discuss allowing Georgia and Ukraine into the alliance through other means.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/26/wo...html?ref=world

Ukraine to Build up Defenses on Russian Border - paper

Ukraine is planning to deploy more troops on its border with Russia in light of the recent military conflict in the Caucasus, a Ukrainian business daily said on Wednesday. Russia and Georgia fought a brief war in August after Tbilisi launched an attack on breakaway South Ossetia in a bid to bring it back under central control. Russia says that Ukraine supplied Tbilisi with weaponry during the conflict, and also sided with the West in support of Georgia. "The events in the Caucasus have forced every country in this region to think about security. It turns out that not everything is so calm, that even Europe may experience military conflicts," Ukrainian Defense Minister Yuriy Yekhanurov was quoted as saying by Delo, a Russian-language business newspaper. Yekhanurov said the plans for a redeployment of troops could be ready by the end of this week, but they should be first approved by the government and President Viktor Yushchenko. The minister has reportedly singled out raising the combat readiness of air defense units and increasing security around strategically important facilities as priority tasks for 2009. According to the Delo, Ukraine could initially increase the number of air defense units near the Russian border by redeploying them from its western regions. The modernization of the existing S-300, Buk-M1, Osa and Tunguska air defense systems is also on the agenda. The redeployment and modernization plans could be hampered, however, by a lack of financing exacerbated by the global financial crisis, the paper added.

Source: http://en.rian.ru/world/20081126/118551322.html

Russia Test-Fires Intercontinental Missile

Russia on Wednesday test-fired for the third time its new RS-24 intercontinental ballistic missile aimed at overcoming air defence systems, the military said. "The test-firing of the RS-24 was carried out on Wednesday from the Plesetsk cosmodrome" in the Arkhangelsk region of northern Russia, the Interfax news agency reported. Military spokesman Alexei Zolotukhin told the agency that "the missile... was launched from a mobile launcher. This is the third test firing of the RS-24 in the last two years." Russia in May 2007 first test-fired the RS-24, which the military has said is designed to overcome air-defence systems such as the controversial US missile shield planned for deployment in eastern Europe.

Source: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp...CaJ9yEx69eVtnw

U.S. Armored Troop Carrier Crashed Motorcade of Russia’s Diplomats

A motorcade of Russia’s diplomats had a traffic accident in Iraq through the fault of U.S. military, spokesmen of the RF Foreign Ministry told RBC news agency. Three armored cars of the RF embassy were heading for the international airport when a column of five armored troop carriers of the United States set to overtaking them. “All of a sudden, the lead armored carrier maneuvered violently, overtook two of three cars of Russia’s motorcade, came abreast of the leading car and hit it to push away from the road. The embassy’s car was heavily damaged, lost control, moved by 180 degree, nearly turning over,” representatives of the RF Foreign Ministry said. Without any agitation, the U.S. armored carriers proceeded in the previous direction, aiming guns at the diplomats, said representatives of the RF Foreign Ministry. According to diplomats, Russia emphasizes the intended nature of the accident and demands to probe into it and punish the guilty. The RF embassies in Bagdad and Washington made the respective statements already.

Source: http://www.kommersant.com/p-13642/Ir...lomat_Russia_/