What exactly does Detroit have in common with Bozeman, Mr. Russian Smartypants?

Russian foreign policy strategist Igor Panarin has predicted that the U.S. will break up into rump states next year.

We may have problems in America, but that is definitely a WTF theory.

But, it's also not a new theory: check out this wiki describing this fine 1981 book (at left) by this author.

As has already been noted on The Internets, including by the insightful author, WaPo reporter Joel Garreau, Panarin has no sense of American regionalism, of where our lines naturally lie.

So, he's either clueless, a political hack, or just channeling Britain in the Middle East, c. WWI.

But if part of the U.S. does align with the EU, and it brings about topless beaches, well, then, I may just be down with that.