Posted on 08/05/2004 10:51:20 PM PDT by RussianConservative
CIA angers Russia by predicting break-up of state within 10 years
print version
April 30, 2004 Andrew Osborn in Moscow The Independent
Russia's political elite has been stung by a recently declassified CIA report that suggests the world's largest country could fall apart at the seams in a decade and split into as many as eight different states.
The report, Global Trends 2015, has sparked a lively debate in Russia about the country's territorial integrity and triggered passionate denunciations from some of Russia's leading politicians. Its unflinchingly bleak assessment of Russia's prospects has angered many at a time when the Russian government is doing its best to talk up the economy.
The fact that the gloomy prognosis comes from its old Cold War enemy makes it all the harder for Russia to swallow. But many ordinary Russians seem to share the CIA's pessimism.
An opinion poll conducted by radio station Ekho Moskvy earlier this week revealed that 71 per cent of those surveyed (3,380 people) thought that the disintegration of the motherland was a "real threat".
Yesterday's Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper printed a map for its readers showing how Russia might look by 2015 if the CIA is right. It showed Siberia broken up into four different countries, with western Russia similarly partitioned.
It is not for nothing that president Vladimir Putin's party is called United Russia. According to the CIA, some of Russia's eastern regions are so rich in natural resources such as oil and gas that they will opt to break away from Moscow, which they have long accused of poor governance.
Komsomolskaya Pravda was dismissive of the report. "Either the CIA has super perspicacious analysts who can see what mortal Russians, including politicians and political scientists, cannot, or someone has got it wrong," it said.
Boris Gryzlov, the speaker of the Russian parliament, said: "I completely reject the possibility of Russia breaking up.
"Over the past four years, a lot has been done to strengthen vertical power and legislation in the constituent parts of the Russian Federation was brought into line with the constitution a long time ago."
According to the CIA report, a falling birth rate meant that the country's population was likely to decline to 130 million by 2015 from 146 million today. It also painted a picture of Russia as a terminally ill patient.
"The Soviet economic inheritance will continue to plague Russia," the report said. "Besides a crumbling physical infrastructure, years of environmental neglect are taking a toll on the population, a toll made worse by such societal costs of transition as alcoholism, cardiac diseases, drugs and a worsening health delivery system. Russia's population is not only getting smaller, but it is becoming less and less healthy and less able to serve as an engine of economic recover."
Dmitry Orlov, the director of Russia's political and economic communications agency, claimed the CIA had an ulterior motive. "The conservative wing of the American Republican party is interested in the maximum weakening of Russia's position and maybe even in its fragmentation," Mr Orlov told the Izvestia newspaper
Any siberian areas: day they become independent is the day China invades...and if China gather Siberia and all resources in need...US is over, face reality...your drop will then come as quickly as China can exploit and US become second rate within decades.
Further, if Russia (European) was to disolve, EU come in and absorb...then US have massive enemy on other side...probably allied to China. Not to mention that Turkick and Persian and Arabic Islamics then rejoice and spread even faster...US become island besieged.
Of course, Western intellectuals predict such breakups for 300 years now...glad to continue in disappointing.
Don't forget, this is the same CIA that claimed WMD's in Iraq are a "slam dunk." I'll believe it when it happens.
I wouldn't worry about what the CIA predicts. They totally missed the breakup of the USSR. In fact, that might be what they're referring to in their prediction.
The scinero of US breaking into Latino/ Non Latino is far more realstic than that scinero.
A breakup of Russia would also create another oppotunity for radical Islamists to expand their jihad.
These kinds of assessments are really not properly called "predictions". They are more properly thought of as "what if" scenarios, exercises to try to ascertain what consequences would flow should things develop in a certain way.
This is the same sort of misconstruing that undergirded the claims a few weeks back that the US Department of Defence was predicting wars and massive failures - economic, agricultural, societal, and so on, real doomsday stuff resulting from (of all things) global warming!
Nobody shold take these exercises as an indication that the authors think that these results are probable - only that they may be possible.
CIA analysis haan't been very impressive lately. They missed 9/11, they can't tell us what happened to the WMD, they have publicly taken sides in the upcoming elections. A politicized CIA is less than useless. They need to be cleaned out from one end to the other.
The CIA is supposed to help make plans for any eventuality. I'm sure they have plans for Canada breaking up and Islam taking over Europe and all sorts of things. Its weird that some people take these things personally.
I have spent the past year putting together a college course keyed to the historical aspects of Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations" Taught is last Spring at the graduate level.
For what its worth, I don't consider this Russian cultural scism so far fetched. In fact, I concur that it will be coming -- just the degree and alacrity, in my view.
We can see the intense pressures for separation along cultural/religious lines throughout the Southern tier, just for openers. And, further to the East, more of the same to varying degress throughout virtually all of the Muslim "states" within the federation.
Only a matter of time. BUT, I suggest we look at our own Southwestern tier. I suspect that in 50 years we would not recognize the United States -- or Canada !!
Changing times we are in. I recommend Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations" as a must read.
Our CIA has not been right for a long, long time. The Russians have nothing to worry about.
Boxer is just wore out from building that windmill.
The day they become independent, they'll do what other former satelites of the USSR have done:
They'll ask the USA to put a base on their territory!
That will solve the China problem.
WOW - if the CIA said it, then it must be true............ Although I'd think that the emergence of an nation named Aztlan is much more likely.
Let's suppose that Russia will break up (which I don't think it will, not in European Russia anyway. Russia went through worse moments in the post-Soviet era and managed to soldier on. Even Belarus and Ukrajna are now getting closer to Russia, IIRC)
Let's suppose that the EU is suddenly hell-bent on expansion (which I doubt)
Let's suppose that the EU wants to absorb former Russian states in a hostile move against the USA (which sounds a bit science-fiction to me)
How much time, money and energy would be necessary for the EU to effictevely absorb these states and make them mere EU regions ? Look at what happened to Eastern Germany : Germany still feels the economical cost of uniting the country, in a much lower scale, although these were fellow Germans they absorbed !
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.