Though I am soon to depart overseas to London to blog with a more international perspective, I report to you today live from the future Californian Republic of China.

For those of you not familiar with the coming establishment of this Chinese-operated province in what will-once-have-been-formerly the Western U.S., you can read more about the impending breakup of the United States as predicted by a prominent Russian professor and foreign minister here.

The Wall Street Journal describes the circulation of such theories in elite Russian circles, telling us a lot about the disposition of these circles toward the United States.  Can anything be done about this anti-Americanism?

If you’re curious to whom you should address your citizenship application or where you should plan your next vacation without needing a visa, make sure to check out the map of which nation will control your state.

Thinking ahead to the non-existent next election, Sarah Palin will be getting a much closer view of Russia.  However, if she were to use this newfound foreign experience when she runs for President, she would be doing so in Russia, and I doubt the potential for success in that strategy. Still, if she were to be successful, Russia, according to the map, would hold no control over my home state of California, which would effectively choose Chinese control over the potential of any more Sarah Palins coming around.

Otherwise notable is the reclamation of the southwestern territories minus California but plus the South by Mexico, though the Mexican officials might not be in the right state of mind to take full advantage of the seizure for some time.

Also, a large group of Mid-Westerners are going to have to end their dispute with Canada in a fairly embarrassing way.

—-[More after the fold]—-

Of course, this Russian professor probably drew his prediction from my blog from last week, telling tales of global strife and woe being brought on by the barrel-full by the current economic crisis.  Oh, and if you are liable to believe anything that CBS says any more, it’s not getting better any time soon.

Still, I am fairly confident that despite the economic downturn, it truly takes a wishful attitude (on the part of the Russian professor) to predict the disintegration of the United States.  I am willing to admit to deficiencies in my optimism, but not that the entire system that people have lived and died for during the past two hundred-plus years will prefer the control of Mexico, Canada, Japan, or the E.U., not to mention our best-friends Russia and China.  It is indeed a chilling thought, especially with the current financial crisis in the capital of the Californian Republic

What this does expose (as the article mentions) is the level of anti-Americanism that is prevalent in elite Russian circles.  It would seem their greatest hope is to watch the U.S. walk into its own booby-trapped financial system and leave solely Russia as leaders of the newly-freed world.  The Western system created a big economic downturn that swallowed it up, and all that is left is state-centered China and Russia to provide capital to an impoverished world.

The problem is that, from their perspective, we have done nothing to give them any feeling but anti-Americanism.  Of course, there are decades-long enmities that are not solvable by a mere switch to “democracy,” still-fresh wounds of people being acutely aware that at any moment they faced missile attacks from the world’s other pole.  Yet beyond this, it does not seem that the U.S. has done very much to bridge the gap between the two states and begin the process of surmounting this opposition.  Russia feels like the Western powers are cornering it and taking away its influence over its former satellites, and believes that a move toward retrenchment is the only suitable response for a dignified world power in opposition.

It seems to me that there is much room for the new administration to reach out to Russia.  This is a bit of a boiler-plate suggestion, I know, but the opening of a real and constructive dialogue that goes beyond soul searching could be a big step toward making Russia feel less backed into a corner.

This can be difficult: Movements towards democracy or NATO membership in the formerly-Russian satellites should not be threatening if Russia is committed to democracy and freedom, yet the level of crony-ism and state-centered control that is becoming increasingly prevalent is causing a rift with the goals of the Western democracies.  The nostalgia for days of world-domination pictured by the double-headed eagle in Igor Panarin’s office (the Russian professor who made the initial projections) is not going to be satiated until Russia is allowed to prosper again, but with the price of oil down and the U.S. dollar’s influence over that price of oil, Russia has a stake in partnership with the U.S.

As Panarin notes, the failure of the U.S. would not be good for Russia, no matter what its ego assumes.

So the key point is to open dialogue to induce Russia to view its interest over its ego.  If we are in this together and mutually-reliant to a degree, we should act like it.  If our failure means incredible punishment to Russia, then Russia needs to learn to stop wishing for it; if our policies continue to drive other countries from our negotiating table, we are going to find ourselves with no friends in a time of crisis.  Out of none of these situations does anyone benefit.

Though stranger things have happened, I hope that this prediction evidences nothing more than the chasm that has developed between the U.S. and Russia; still, its jarring proposal provides us with an excellent reason to re-evaluate our relations and decide if we really want to set ourselves in opposition to a large portion of the world based on ideological concerns.

I am going to submit this post now, though, because who knows how my new Chinese rulers will react?

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