This is your intelligence community on potato vodka...

Moscow is all gaga over Russian professor, former KGB analyst and foreign policy "expert" Igor Panarin. But elsewhere, he is not generating headlines of the flattering variety by any means. His claim to fame: predicting the U.S.A. will cease to exist as of next year. Apparently, demographic and social trends will lead to civil war as wealthier states secede from the union. Then, the country will split along ethnic lines and foreign powers will move in to claim the smoldering remains. Here's how the process shakes out in this starry-eyed Kremlin fantasy:

Let's recap:

1) South Carolina, Tennessee and Kentucky join the EU, under the same central government as Vermont.
2) Kansas and Missouri (not to mention Colorado Springs) become part of Canada, but Washington does not.
3) Texans voluntarily submit to the will of Mexico City bureaucrats.
4) Utah and Arizona are annexed by China.

Not to mention Alaska and all its oil goes to Russia, who can't even handle the territory it already has. But wasn't this the purpose of the Kremlin's exercise in silly geopolitical daydreaming to begin with?

Now the punchlines virtually write themselves, but I'll make a couple more serious observations under the assumption that this theory is anything but laughable and let you all add the jokes.

First, there are certainly demographic divides within the US, but they are more than canceled out by the economic benefits of a strong central government and nearly nonexistent interstate economic barriers. Meaning unity hasn't been a serious problem for the country for some time now.

Second, any political collapse in the United States would undoubtedly be accompanied by economic collapse. This would cause an alarming rise in instability in all of the countries mentioned as potential colonizers, including and especially the already unstable Russia.

Third, any of the colonial alliances portrayed in that colorful map above would present serious strategic problems for Russia. Most notably, the American east would immediately be the largest nation in the EU and would certainly push the consortium towards a more hawkish stance on Russia's bullyish extortion of Europe regarding natural gas. Also, about the last thing Russia needs right now is a stronger China to threaten its hold on Siberia.

If you've read this far, please feel free to add your jokes in the comments.