After my first nonstop drive from New England down to the Deep South I was really hit over the head with what a weird country the United States is. How wildly different we are due to size. A lot of non-Americans here might not fully grasp it do to being from relatively small countries and/or with small populations (Brazilians you can probably feel me), and like me most Americans might not even grasp it if you haven't really left your home region on anything but the occasional plane flight to visit somewhere else.
But there's something kind of precarious about this country, like it shouldn't exist as it does.
Awhile ago a Russian professor made a study about how he predicts the US will "Balkanize" in the coming century. Which if you don't know means we would go the way of Yugoslavia and separate into a spattering of new countries based on ethnic and in our case cultural lines.
This was his map.
http://www.marshallastor.com/Igor%20Panarin%27s%20Balkanized%20United%20States.jpg
His map is bullshit of course.
- This guys obviously knows nothing about many of these states, like South Carolina joining a Northeast dominated nation lol.
- Assuming these countries would be default bitches of various international powers when entire states like California and Texas have some of the world's largest economies and populations on their very own.
But just think about the idea of Balkanization.
Would it be feasible?
Would we all suffer? Just some of us?
What would change in world politics?
What would the various new countries be and how would they operate?
Would this actually be a good thing for us all?
Or a disaster?
Would there be any Bosnia situations where the new nations would fight over border territories with vaguely defined demographics (think Virginia)?
What sort of thing would have to happened to make us split like this?
Texans are probably very familiar with these thoughts more then the rest of us, but I want everyone to chip in. Foreigners and Americans alike.
And remember I'm not talking about secession, I'm talking about the USA completely ceasing to exist, no successor state. But 4 or 5 (or more or less) new nations popping up from it's ashes.