(Op-ed Piece)
Once again it is that time of year, where the minds of the world prognoses the future of humanity, for at least a year to come. In light of this tradition and for a second year running, I will endeavor to do the same.
As I said last year, 2009 was a gloomy year, though not quite a bad as I predicted. Of course, this does not mean I was wrong, only that with Herculean efforts, the worst was put off to a bit later, though not stopped only stalled.
Upcoming in this year will be the second fall in the Global Depression. This will start with nations failing in their sovereign debt and will quickly spiral out of control for vast areas, followed by more break down in civil order and war. Oil prices will not rise to much further in real value, though they will to some degree in dollars as inflation kicks in and pushes things up, even as a lack of demand drives prices down. However, by the end of the year, oil will see a large increase due to supply constraints caused by geopolitical issues: first in Mexico, than in Venezuela and finally in the Persian Gulf.
Russia
As I said, Russia came through the economic collapse relatively without major pain and exited recession in 3qtr. Russia will face further crisis in 2010, spurred by outside forces, however stability will reign again. The economy will briefly reenter recession and the government will be forced spend much of its remaining reserves to uphold the nation. Revenues will also go down, as world economic demand sinks.
However, being largely self sustaining, Russia will continue through and will continue to lower taxes and regulation on small businesses. Immigration from the EU and the US as well as companies flocking to open new facilities to escape the government strangulation of business in America and Europe and the vast areas of unrest, will pickup.
The collapse of Ukraine and the upcoming war with Georgia will present new opportunities, as well as improving ties with China and Japan. Ukraine will split and much of it will be on its way to absorption into Russia, as is Abkhazia and S.Ossessia. Georgia will be a protectorate.
War and civil war in Mexico, Venezuela and the Persian Gulf will push oil prices up even as demand continues to fall and Russia will be the only safe source on a large scale.
America
In a word, slow strangulation. First will come the socialized medicine, followed by the cap and trade and finally the forced increase in interest rates, as no one will want to buy the debt of the world's biggest beggar who is busy murdering its own economy.
Many companies will flee the US, shifting their registrations and headquarters from America to other nations with lower levels of insane regulation and taxation. Further, the crunch will force one state after another to bankrupt. The American federal government will find itself in a situation of either letting the suffering spread, before their parliamentary elections or printing money and spending with abandon to avoid the pain around election time and off set it a bit further. Thus will start the final phase of run away inflation.
The American Marxists will face a third "radical" party of conservatives, who will threaten their One Party Two Branch monopoly and will in the end require strong security and military reactions.
Disaster in Afghanistan and renewed major unrest in Iraq will only spur the feeling of instability as additionally, Mexico's civil war will continue to spill over into America.
Strong independence movements will become mainstream in Texas, southern California, Alaska and much of the old Confederacy. Pro independence terrorism will start to appear, along side a vast upsurge of SJS (Sudden Jihad Syndrome) amongst the Islamic members of America.
Germany
Germany will continue developing relationships with Russia at an accelerated speed. They will actively block American drives to get Ukraine, Georgia and Turkey into the EU and will work to curtail America's growing and desperate demands for troops for NATO's boondoggles. German anger at America after the Opel fiasco will continue to grow as the Obama regime makes one blunder after another. Germany will take a very active role in pushing America out of Europe and European affairs and the bad blood will become very thick.
Trade between Russia and Germany will grow faster than at any time in the past 20 years and will go a long way to keeping both economies running while others collapse. German banks will suffer from their exposure to Poland and Hungary.
Turkish violence will continue to rise and the Germans will work actively to clap it down. Vigilantly anti-Islamic violence will also rise. A rise in Catholicism will be the back lash to the Islamic renewals.
Baltics
If the absolute collapse could get any worse, itwill in the Baltics. Mass unemployment will worsen until only the minority has jobs. At this point there will be mass unrest and the EU/UN will begin to bring food in to feed the masses.
Lithuania will move remarkably towards Russia and will attempt to develop some amounts of trade and business. Russia will assist it with loans for Lithuania's new loyalty. Poland and the US/UK will work to counter this and over throw the Lithuanian government through continued instability.
Estonia and Latvia will be swept by Nazi regimes, who will blame everything on the Russian minority. Street battles will erupt, plunging both nations into chaos. EU/Russian peace keepers will be deployed to keep the two sides separate and a UN commission will be launched.
Serbia
As Serbia's economic woes continue to mount, the Radicals will win the elections, drawing Serbia fully into the Russian camp. Various US/UK media reports will go to extremes to demonize the Serbs. Radovan Karadzic will be found guilty of war crimes and than quickly die from a heart attack in the Hag. Brussels will make more demands for more victims from the Serbs for its kangaroo trials. This will cause a major political stand off between the Radicals and the EU police state, drawing in Russia's weight on the side of the Serbs.
The domino effect will be fast and furious.
Once NATO steps aside and does nothing to loose yet more troops to the Serb army, the signal will be clear. The KLA will flee into Greece, Macedonia and Albania. In Albania, they will destabilize the already weak government and the state, by the end of the year will be in the process of collapsing. Macedonia will find itself once more mired in a civil war. This time, though, a weak US will not be able to stop Macedonia’s neighbors from arming the Orthodox Christian state against the Islamic-Narco insurgency.
Ukraine
Ukraine will be the main story of 2010, as far as absolutely failed states go. The upcoming January elections will not bring stability or peace but will instead exasperate the political infighting further, coupled with economic depression, Kiev will loose total control of the nation. Riots and demonstrations will break out in Kiev, as diehards of all sides seek to gain control of the government. The Rada (Parliament) will be riddled with the infighting and will be absolutely effective in doing nothing.
Crimea will declare out and out independence and will ask Russia for incorporation in to the Russian Federation. Die hard western Ukrainian Nazis will pour in to Crimea, backed by elements of the security forces to "establish" order. This will cause a full scale battle and will bring Russian marines directly into combat with Una-Unso and their Western backers. The US/UK intelligence will activate their Crimean Tartar elements and being a terror jihad on the peninsula. Unfortunately for the less than bright leadership of the Tartars, being on a peninsula, with no Islamic state to run and hide in and being outnumbered 4 to 1 by Russian/Ukrainian people will prove the Jihad a short and bloody affair and result in whole sale expulsion and pogroms of the Tartars. Some terror activity, with Western backing will continue, from the rugged canyons and mountains.
Eastern Ukraine will ask for Russian recognition as an independent state and will be granted it. Moves will begin to form a "union of equal states" of Russia, Belarus, Abkhazia, S.Ossessia and East Bank Ukraine. West Bank Ukraine will also fall into bickering and fighting between die hard ultra nationalists and EU puppets as well as Polish backers. Poland will move actively to intervene and dominate the local politics, which, considering Poland's long history of murder and oppression in the region, will spectacularly back fire.
Georgia
That Saakashvili is still in power, shows how much I underestimated the lack of will and organization of the various opposition. This will continue, as the opposition beats itself in the chest as proud opponents of the regime but proves to be castrated mice, unwilling and unable to do much more than squeak loudly and run away.
However, as the situation worsens in Ukraine, the Obama regime will start to egg the insane Saakashvili to do "something". This something will take the form of aid and munitions to the Islamic jihadists, but at a much larger scale than before, as Washington desperately attempts to ignite the Caucus wars of the the 1990s and draw off Russian resources. This direct aid will be exposed by internal elements opposed to the Saakashvili regime and will spark a diplomatic and military stand off. When Saakashvili, still believing in his Western masters, fails to back down, President Medvedev will be forced to launch an airborne assault into the Pankisi Gorge and this in turn will spark the second Russian-Georgian war. Tbilisi will fall about 1.5 weeks later.
Israel
Netanyahu's regime and that of Obama willcontinue to have a falling out as the US will simply move to conclude a "peace" upon Israel, backed by the UK and EU, though the Germans will be secretly playing a double game. Israel will of course refuse and DC will do everything to undermine the state and government, while giving aid to the PLA. Rocket attacks and terrorism will pickup markably. Israel will continue to make noises about Iran but will not move nor will get directly involved in the Persian Gulf inferno that will sweep the region.
Persian Gulf
The entirety of the region will all into an all out civil war and disruption, a catastrophe for the region, but because of which oil will grow quickly in price, while worldjihad, with Saudi money busy at home, will fall off. The final break downs have already begun with Dubai's default on its debts, which will spread and the open war in Yemen between Shia and Yemenis/Saudi Sunnis with Washington's direct military backing and engagement.
The war will spread, first with demonstrations and than fighting by Shia in Saudi Arabia, Oman and UAE. UAE's slave labour of Pakistanis, Indians, Filipinos and Afghans will also rise up and demolish the government and Sunni Arab control in the region. Iran will aid all of these directly with intelligence, military and money.
Saudi Arabia will redirect its Jihadist elements at Iran, causing various wide spread mass casualty terror attacks and will attempt to destroy Iran's ports. Between the two, the Straights of Hormuz will be closed and neutral shipping will be endangered. US elements will be engaged with Iran on and off without any full declaration of war, as a break down at home and in the Gulf of Mexico taxes available assets.
Iraq will again explode into full scale civil war as Iran activates its assets and launches a fight to pin down US elements.
Afghanistan
US/NATO forces will be unable to control the nation even with extra military assets. The fighting will escalate and so will casualties. The drive to reduce casualties by pulling in the out flung bases will result in the Taliban holding all of the countryside by night, in the central and southern provinces. Russian support will never materialize, as Russian public opinion is strongly against aiding the Americans or NATO. NATO's strain will be such that one nation after another will declare an end to the commitments and begin withdrawals.
China
This is the year that China will face the canary in the mine and ignore it's hanging corpse.
China , who has taken bubble blowing to unprecedented levels. It has masked over capacity by doing something incredibly stupid, increasing that capacity further and further, and using the extra capacity in the creation of yet more capacity. Sure, this puts off judgment day by a few years, but it is coming and 2010 will be that day. World demand has not only not returned to the levels of 2007, and Chinese production capacity is well above what it was in 2007, but what demand has remained, is now being guarded by every economy to make sure its means of satisfying that demand, and thus providing jobs, stays at home. China, reacting like a blind sided, and spoiled brat who is used to everyone pandering to it, has swung out at the world and wound up in trade wars with the EU, US and Russia. Of course, this only further cuts demand for that ever expanding capacity. Judgment day is indeed here, as the majority of China's citizens, who make up the shoeless peasants and the near slave labourers in the plants, will never be able to afford what they produce.
China will react to any growing disruptions the same way they have always, with bullets. For that reason, the Chinese central authorities will continue to hold power but there will be flare ups and open rebellion in one province after another. Beijing's tactics will become as brutal as necessary to hold power.
Beijing will also use the opportunity of N.Korea's collapse and the reunification of the Koreas to push American influence out of the region, working with the Korean government and the new socialists in Japan to rid the area of the Americans, in exchange to wide open market access in China.
Japan
Japan will continue to struggle, neither in recovery or recession but in the wavy gray zone in between. Internationally, Japan will move much closer to China and will utilize this trade to grow its economy and keep its citizenry calm. Japan will also move to push the US out of its territories, with rising Japanese nationalism being the major factor.
Japan will work with China and Korea to recreate its Co-Prosperity League, though this time with a lot less Japanese domination involved. If successful, this will be the first stop to pull the rest east Asia in and to dominate it.
Stanislav Mishin
Mat Rodina
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