Archive for January, 2009

Published January 3rd, 2009 by Future Atlas

US Disintegration?

Joel Garreau of the Washington Post reports on the Russian pundit Igor Panarin, who is forecasting that “the United States will break into six parts in June or July of 2010.”

He notes that

Panarin’s disintegration divination comes complete with a map. In it, Alaska goes to Russia. Hawaii goes to Japan or China. “The California Republic” — the West from Utah and Arizona to the Pacific — goes to China. “The Texas Republic” — the South from New Mexico to Florida — goes to Mexico. “Atlantic America” — the Northeast from Tennessee and South Carolina up to Maine — joins the European Union. And “The Central North-American Republic” — the Plains from Ohio to Montana — goes to Canada.

Garreau suggests that Russians may be happily projecting their own past experiences — or future worries — onto the US. And, in fact, Russia is more likely to lose parts than is the US.

Overall, the likelihood of secession in the US seems low. This is the FutureAtlas.com estimate:
Probability of US splitting

And, as Garreau and others point out, Panarin’s divisions are oddly chosen. A more likely division might look something like this:
Future Americas?

The most plausible fracture line is the “red-blue” one, as the largest font of true extremism in the US comes from the so-called “Christian right.” One can imagine a scenario in which the Republican Party or a Christan-right splinter of it can no longer win national elections, turns radical, and seeks a split, taking the South, the Great Plains, and the northern Rockies. (Or it might just involve the South, if the Republicans become a regional, Southern party.)

Overall, though, this is unlikely, as American national identity is strong, all parts of the country are somewhat ideologically mixed, and all but the most extreme evangelical Christians seem to understand the realities of living in pluralist, diverse America.

(Who knows what Alaska might do in this circumstance? It might stay in the US, join the red secession, or opt for independence. It would not revert to Russia however.)

Graphics copyright FutureAtlas.com — usable with attribution and link

| Post in Mapping, North America, United States | 5 Comments

Published January 3rd, 2009 by Future Atlas

My Russia Commentary on Radio Free Europe

Russian flagI wrote a commentary piece for Radio Free Europe on the future of Russia.

The central points, briefly, are these:

  • “Diminished democratic decision making reduces the feedback Russian society can give to the government, increasing the likelihood that popular and elite interests will diverge.”
  • “A state that relies on resource extraction can easily lose the inclination to attend to other aspects of economic strength that are more stable and promising over the long term.”
  • “Russia seems fixated on threats from the West. But this sense of danger is misplaced,” as “Russia faces much more plausible security threats from the south and east.”
  • “No foreign power is likely to do Russia as much harm as its dire demographic decline.”

A commenter had this to say about the piece: the “author conveniently forgets about the fact that throughout the 90s Russia already tried to align with the broadly defined “West”, only to see its interests completely ignored and enemies encouraged through a very short-sighted policies of US, EU, and NATO.”

One might ask: which enemies where encouraged? Russia’s only real enemies in the 1990s were separatists in Caucasian Russia, and the West had little to do with that. Unless Russia has military designs on the former countries of the Warsaw Pact, Russia’s interests are not harmed by their joining NATO, and in any case Russia does not get to choose their fates any longer. After centuries of abuse at Russian hands, the Poles (for instance) have every right to look for protection westward. (Though continued rapid NATO expansion is not a great idea: at this point, inclusion of divided Ukraine and irresponsible Georgia would probably harm NATO more than it would hurt Russian interests.)

And Serbia was a terrible place to place one’s sympathies: Russia ignored the fact that the Serbians were engaging in savage policies in both Bosnia and Kosovo — and neither situation was triggered by the West.

Internally, Russians were in fact harmed by the so-called oligarchs, but they were Russian, and they acquired wealth and power due to choices Russians made.

My ultimate point is this: it should act on its real interests, not a emotion-driven parody of those interests.

| Post in Europe, Russia | 1 Comment