# Balkanize the US - anyone remember Panarin? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 27, 2016, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/balkanize-the-us-anyone-remember-panarin/769862 "2016-10-27T17:55:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2016, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/balkanize-the-us-anyone-remember-panarin/769862/41 "2016-10-29T00:10:02Z")
> [@Doctor\_Jackson](#): > > \*Next , draw an east-west line along the southern border of Utah, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Kentucky and Virginia > > \*States north of that line become USTDC - United State of Too Damn Cold Winters. Politically aligned with European Union. hey! Canada, surely? I’d love to have some warm southern destinations during our winters to get away to! ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2016, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/balkanize-the-us-anyone-remember-panarin/769862/42 "2016-10-29T01:51:22Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > hey! Canada, surely? > > I’d love to have some warm southern destinations during our winters to get away to! I’ve had the Speaker of a province that shall remain nameless ask me if we in PUR would mind if in exchange for helping with at least part of our current fiscal clusterf\*\*k the US may be persuaded to hand us over. I asked him how they’d feel about adding yet another language to every official document and he said “oh, I would not worry aboot that”. Hey, it was an open bar event, OK? But I’m not sure if I’d want to inflict us upon such a nice orderly polity. ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2016, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/balkanize-the-us-anyone-remember-panarin/769862/43 "2016-10-29T02:24:27Z")
I won’t fight the hypothetical, so here’s how I would divide things up. I’ll speculate that there would be two Souths. There would be a western South with Texas as the focal point. This South would include Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Oklahoma. Then there would be an eastern South with Florida as a focal point. This South would include Alabama, Georgia, the Carolinas, and the rural parts of Virginia. Tennessee and Kentucky would likely be split in half by these two different countries. Why do I think it would happen like this? If the country is already splitting up, I don’t see two separate large power centers in Florida and Texas staying together, so they would likely form rival nations. I think the west coast would be another nation focused on California. This nation would probably include Las Vegas and Phoenix as well. The northeastern states another, with the urban parts of Virginia and all the rest of the states along the Atlantic seaboard north of that being another country focused on New York. I’m including Maryland, Delaware, eastern New York and Pennsylvania, as well as New England in this country. There could be a Great Lakes country centered around Illinois. I’d include Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Indiana, and western New York and western Pennsylvania in this nation. Alaska would probably end up with Canada, not Russia, and Hawaii would go it’s own way. The rest of states, being landlocked and not highly populated, would be screwed and probably be unable to survive as their own country. ---
**Author:** ![Tzigone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Tzigone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tzigone)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2016, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/balkanize-the-us-anyone-remember-panarin/769862/44 "2016-10-29T02:56:18Z")
> [@](#): > > The rest of states, being landlocked and not highly populated, would be screwed and probably be unable to survive as their own country. Interesting. Don’t know enough to say if probable or not, but it’s interesting. Being landlocked is a disadvantage, as you say. This part of the country would have beef production, right? Of course, that’s dependent the having inputs. They can graze, but how much supplemental feed is needed? There’s some fracking, so that’s a resource and they could export via rail, but prices are down from previous highs. Iowa produces corn. Still those states might do better to see if they can get themselves statehood in one of the other nations, and the remaining states will likely be made weaker each time. ---
**Author:** ![Lamar\_Mundane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lamar\_Mundane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamar_Mundane)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2016, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/balkanize-the-us-anyone-remember-panarin/769862/45 "2016-10-29T03:06:24Z")
> [@FlikTheBlue](#): > > I won’t fight the hypothetical, so here’s how I would divide things up. > > I’ll speculate that there would be two Souths. There would be a western South with Texas as the focal point. This South would include Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Oklahoma. Then there would be an eastern South with Florida as a focal point. This South would include Alabama, Georgia, the Carolinas, and the rural parts of Virginia. Tennessee and Kentucky would likely be split in half by these two different countries. Why do I think it would happen like this? If the country is already splitting up, I don’t see two separate large power centers in Florida and Texas staying together, so they would likely form rival nations. > > I think the west coast would be another nation focused on California. This nation would probably include Las Vegas and Phoenix as well. > > The northeastern states another, with the urban parts of Virginia and all the rest of the states along the Atlantic seaboard north of that being another country focused on New York. I’m including Maryland, Delaware, eastern New York and Pennsylvania, as well as New England in this country. > > There could be a Great Lakes country centered around Illinois. I’d include Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Indiana, and western New York and western Pennsylvania in this nation. > > Alaska would probably end up with Canada, not Russia, and Hawaii would go it’s own way. > > The rest of states, being landlocked and not highly populated, would be screwed and probably be unable to survive as their own country. I’ve said this before, but CO just needs to divert the Colorado River into a side canyon and dam it up, and Arizona, Nevada, and Southern California are at our mercy for their very existence. ---
**Author:** ![penultima\_thule](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penultima_thule/32/3833_2.png) [@penultima\_thule](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/penultima_thule)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2016, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/balkanize-the-us-anyone-remember-panarin/769862/46 "2016-10-31T01:42:05Z")
If Egypt and Ethiopia can agree on the [Grand Renaissance Dam](https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/mar/23/egypt-signs-grand-renaissance-dam-nile-deal-ethiopia-sudan)on the Blue Nile then there are options and accommodations available. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2016, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/balkanize-the-us-anyone-remember-panarin/769862/47 "2016-10-31T02:22:14Z")
I think Mexico would be really surprised if the government in Mexico City thought they’d absorb California or Texas. Economic Rank California: [$2.46 Trillion](http://fortune.com/2016/06/17/california-france-6th-largest-economy/) Texas: [$1.65 Trillion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Texas) Mexico: [$1.261 Trillion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Mexico) The real question would be who would be absorbing whom? ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2016, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/balkanize-the-us-anyone-remember-panarin/769862/48 "2016-10-31T02:47:21Z")
That point correctly emphasises just how silly the whole thing was. How is Canada, with its much smaller population, going to dominate a big chunk of the mid-west? Or Mexico ditto with the southern US states? And how would either China or the EU dominate large portions of the US from across the Pacific and the Atlantic? I think **Lemur866** got it right: “My country broke up so, wah, the US has to break up. It’s not fair if they don’t, wah!” ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2016, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/balkanize-the-us-anyone-remember-panarin/769862/49 "2016-10-31T03:41:32Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Actually, I DIDN’T remember Igor Panarin until you reminded me. > > But man, what an ignoramus! People often chide Americans for knowing so little about the outside world, but Panarin became a celebrity and a hero in Russia for spewing out nonsensical theories with NO grounding in reality! > > No matter what noises various segments of the US population may make, we’re one nation, and nobody is seceding or getting taken over by any other country. > > I’d like to think Panarin is a clever fraud, but I think he’s just a delusional moron in a country eager to believe what he’s saying. He’s a guy with a PhD in a country with (like the U.S.) an impressive tradition of scholarship, so I wouldn’t call him a moron. Delusional, yes. I think the US and Russia have probably a lot more in common (in this regard) than a lot of people would like to think: they’re both vast continental powers with quasi-messianic worldviews, with a history (current in America’s case, and pre-1991 in Russia’s) of being superpowers, so I think people in both countries have a tendency to focus within their own borders and fail to learn much about the rest of the world. America is actually more demographically _homogeneous_ than just about any big country, and most medium sized countries, than I can think of. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2016, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/balkanize-the-us-anyone-remember-panarin/769862/50 "2016-10-31T04:29:47Z")
Also, Americans have an insatiable appetite for two things: being told we’re the best ever, and being told we’re the worst ever. ---
**Author:** ![penultima\_thule](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penultima_thule/32/3833_2.png) [@penultima\_thule](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/penultima_thule)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2016, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/balkanize-the-us-anyone-remember-panarin/769862/51 "2016-10-31T05:26:20Z")
> [@Hector\_St\_Clare](#): > > America is actually more demographically _homogeneous_ than just about any big country, and most medium sized countries, than I can think of. On most measures China is more homogeneous, as is Japan. Probably add in Indonesia and Russia for giggles. ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2016, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/balkanize-the-us-anyone-remember-panarin/769862/52 "2016-10-31T12:23:35Z")
> [@penultima\_thule](#): > > On most measures China is more homogeneous, as is Japan. Probably add in Indonesia and Russia for giggles. Sorry, I was using a highly tendentious meaning of ‘homogeneous’ there. Here’s what I meant. America has a lot of diverse ethno-racial groups, lots of religions, big gaps between rich and poor, etc… (We aren’t that ideologically / politically diverse, I guess). Most of the divisions in America don’t really follow geographic lines, though, which makes the idea of secession somewhat unlikely. There is no American equivalent to the linguistic diversity in India; unlike in Russia our biggest single religious minority isn’t more than a few percentage points; the gap between rich and poor parts of the country is much smaller in America than in Brazil or India; unlike in Russia or China our ethnic minorities aren’t really concentrated in their own ‘republics’ or ‘autonomous regions’; and possibly most importantly, not only do we only have two parties which don’t differ from each other on _all that much_ (though that’s starting to change), but the red/blue division doesn’t match up all that well with geography either. There is no state that’s less than about 20% Democratic or less than about 25% Republican. If we did ever divide along political lines it would be an urban-rural division, and neither of those divided halves would be all that sustainable without the other. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/balkanize-the-us-anyone-remember-panarin/769862.md?page=2)