Russia appears to be at it with the psychological warfare again.

This time, Russian “professor” Igor Panarin is spreading FUD about the future of the United States by predicting its dissolution by 2010.

He based the forecast on classified data supplied to him by FAPSI analysts, he says. He predicts that economic, financial and demographic trends will provoke a political and social crisis in the U.S. When the going gets tough, he says, wealthier states will withhold funds from the federal government and effectively secede from the union. Social unrest up to and including a civil war will follow. The U.S. will then split along ethnic lines, and foreign powers will move in.

Keep an eye on Russia.

It’s been high times for the past several years with the coincident humbling of its former superpower rival and the rise of oil prices. The New Russia has been flexing its international muscle — economic, diplomatic, and military — and feeling pride about reasserting itself in a bid to regain lost glory.

Now, the fall of oil, combined with Russia’s historical instincts to stir trouble abroad when there’s trouble at home indicates a need for caution.

The precipitous decline of oil and linked weakness of the Ruble creates slippery path for Putin and Medvedev. As the WSJ points out today in “Oil’s Crash Stirs Unrest In Russia As Slump Hits Home”:

The prospect of further unrest poses what could be the biggest challenge yet to the authoritarian system built by Mr. Putin. It also foists a stark choice on the Kremlin: to stifle dissent, or to placate protesters to provide some kind of pressure outlet. For now, the Kremlin has decided on a mixture of both. But the government’s options may narrow as its financial reserves shrink.

New Russian drinking buddy Venezuela is facing similar pressures. Will they collude to cause trouble for a shaken and weakened US and a new, “untested” commander-in-chief in the coming months?

Beware. History is filled with examples of totalitarians demonizing rivals and launching foreign adventures when there’s trouble at home. It’s nice to change the subject when the path is slippery at home.

The WSJ hits the Bush/Obama bailout mentality hard in their editorial “Barack Obama-san.” Politics aside, it’s a sobering review of what has happened to the Japansese economy after real estate and stock market bubbles burst and the government responded with multiple bailouts.

Here’s the chart that compares Japansese and US government debt as percentages of their respective GDPs:

This is a troubling reminder. Not a road to go down, right?

But we’ve already gone down that road. And I’m not talking about AIG or TARP.

You see, this editorial focuses on government debt. But the total national debt that includes individuals and businesses has already bloated!

A recent Morgan Stanley presentation highlights the spike of total debt in the US (on slide 6). Since the turn of the century alone, it has spiked from roughly 250% to 300% of GDP!

The lesson to be learned is more than the ineffectivity of public stimulus, which the WSJ rightly highlights. It is that, regardless of the source or destination of largess, its tantilizing short term benefits are dwarfed by its subtle, long term poison.

Just like binge eating, the pounds remain after the pleasure, and make it that much harder to cut back in the future.