The End of the United States of America

Fun article posted online by the WSJ today:

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.

The Russian professor even has a map where he predicts that the US will break up into six entities (map can be found at the bottom of the article): 1) The Texas Republic (influenced by or under direct control of Mexico), 2) Atlantic America (influenced by or under direct control of the EU), 3) The Central-North American Republic (influenced by or under direct control of Canada), 4) The Californian Republic (influenced by or under direct control of China), 5) Alaska (which will go to Russia...of course it will), and 6) Hawaii (which will go to either Japan or China). 

Two problems: 1) There is no way in hell that South Carolina, West Virginia and Tennessee will peacefully join the European Union. 2) Texas joining Mexico - I don't think so.