A prominent Russian scholar and dean of the Foreign Ministry’s school for diplomats predicts the demise of the United States within the next two years.

Igor Panarin may sound like a nut, but his school is responsible for training future Russian diplomats.

Panarin predicts that President Obama will order martial law later this year and the United States will split into six states by 2011. He then predicts that Alaska will revert to Russian control.

Panarin has been predicting the demise of the United States for the last decade. He bases his prediction on the economic downturn, school shootings, the size of the prison population and the amount of gay men in the U.S.

From the demise of the U.S., Panarin foresees China and Russia rising as great powers and forming a new currency.

Panarin gave this analysis at an open lecture attended by diplomats, students and the media. After his presentation, someone from the audience suggested that Panarin had his countries wrong and that it was really Russia that was on the edge of collapse.

Either that or Panarin needs a better tealeaf reader.