Igor Panarin, a prominent Russian academic, has spent the past decade telling anyone who'd listen that the United States will collapse in 2010. For the better part of a decade, most people did not listen.

But now, as the American economy does its best imitation of the end times, Russians are starting to wonder if Panarin may be on to something….

"There's a 55-45% chance right now that disintegration will occur," [Panarin] says. "One could rejoice in that process," he adds, poker-faced. "But if we're talking reasonably, it's not the best scenario — for Russia." Though Russia would become more powerful on the global stage, he says, its economy would suffer because it currently depends heavily on the dollar and on trade with the U.S.

Mr. Panarin posits, in brief, that mass immigration, economic decline, and moral degradation will trigger a civil war next fall and the collapse of the dollar. Around the end of June 2010, or early July, he says, the U.S. will break into six pieces — with Alaska reverting to Russian control.

Maybe it's worth it, then, if they take Sarah Palin off our hands.