Panarin wrote a controversial essay predicting the collapse of the United States of America by July 2010 following a civil war triggered by mass immigration, economic decline and moral degradation. This was first presented in September 1998, when Panarin attended a conference in Linz, Austria, devoted to information warfare. In 2008 Panarin's theory gained increasing attention from Russian state media following the 2008 financial crisis. Other Russian commentators such as Vladimir Pozner dismiss his predictions.[2][3]