The late Herbert W. Armstrong warned in the March 1950 Plain Truth that “the nations of Europe, directly in the very shadow of the great Russian bear, are becoming disturbed, distrustful of America, and thinking more and more about uniting themselves into a united states of Europe.”

This past week, this trend accelerated in an unprecedented way.

While Ukraine is not part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, it is fighting nato’s traditional enemy: Russia. Recent remarks and actions by United States President Donald Trump have shaken long-standing security assumptions. Trump has been notably lenient toward Russia while adopting a harsher stance on Ukraine, including suspending crucial military aid and intelligence sharing. Most recently, the U.S. withdrew support for F-16 radar-jammers—making Ukraine an easy target for Russia.

European nato allies wouldn’t have to fear failing U.S. weaponry unless they operated in a conflict of interest. Foreseeing precisely that, Europe is pushing for military independence, both in arms production and use.

The result? nato is, in effect, dead.

Military alliances are based on trust. After World War ii, Germany was permitted to join a military alliance under the U.S. security umbrella. In fact, Germany was only allowed to have a military within the nato alliance and not independent from it. The Allies had only partial confidence in Germany, just as Germans were only cautiously reliant on U.S. protection. Today, both fear and trust have vanished.

Besides trust, nato today lacks common goals and enemies. Some Americans see no need to deter Russia from taking parts of Europe. Some Europeans see no need to isolate China as it gears up for a trade war and hot war with the U.S. Our world order of the last 80 years is unraveling. Europe is uniting under a newly militarized Germany without American restraint.

Few dare to consider what it means.

Preparing for Conflicts With the U.S.

In the future, the U.S. and Europe may not only lack agreement on common enemies but enter into conflict with each other. Airbus Defense and Space ceo Michael Schollhorn told Germany’s Augsburger Allgemeine on March 7:

If we use the increase in defense spending to continue buying off-the-shelf products from the U.S., we cement our dependence on others. The Danes, with their American F-35 aircraft, are currently seeing that this may not be such a good idea if they were to come up with the idea of defending Greenland. They wouldn’t even get there.

While this scenario seems unlikely, Europe’s quest for independence is certain—and its clash with the U.S. is prophesied.

“Instead of having to purchase 70 percent of our military requirements in the U.S.A., we should strive to be able to cover 70 percent of our requirements in Europe,” Wolfgang Ischinger, president of the Board of Trustees of the Munich Security Conference Foundation, wrote in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on March 3.

“Replacing U.S.-provided military and defense capabilities would be extremely difficult for the Europeans,” EuroIntelligence noted. “It would also require a completely different approach to defense spending and planning, one that was more European and less national in nature. However, we are at a point where the risks of not doing this are perhaps too great.”

Since military independence means nothing without nuclear weapons, Germans are thinking the unthinkable: getting the bomb. Germany’s likely next chancellor, Friedrich Merz, wants France and Britain to share their nuclear weapons—others openly demand that Germany gets its own.

While recent events appear to be the catalyst, German strategists planned for it long ago.

How It Started

Germany’s second defense minister after the war, Franz Josef Strauss, wrote in The Grand Design: A European Solution to German Reunification (1965):

The European nato countries are justified in reading into the text of the Atlantic treaty an obligation to seek ways and means in the future of making their defense possible from within Europe itself, just as America is able to defend herself. An unsuitably and inadequately armed Europe is of no benefit to America.

Strauss opposed nato’s structure as “an American protective alliance for free European countries” and instead wanted it to be transformed into “an American-European alliance of equals.”

While it was impossible for Strauss to achieve these goals in his day, he laid the foundation for them to be achieved today.

Shortly after World War ii, Strauss pushed for Germany to get nuclear weapons. After much debate, the U.S. denied Germany the acquisition of its own bomb but allowed Germany access to U.S. bombs. However, the use of those bombs requires U.S. consent—something Strauss didn’t like.

Henry Kissinger, alarmed by Strauss’s ambition, warned the Kennedy administration in 1961 that Strauss planned to “simply take” those weapons when he saw fit. Kissinger suggested that America should secure its nuclear weapons in Germany in a way that would make it “physically impossible” to use them without American consent. Regarding this historical nugget, Germany’s Der Spiegel wrote in 2013:

The U.S.A. sensed a “serious threat situation”: In 1962, the U.S. military used roadblocks, heavy machine guns and hundreds of military police to secure a nuclear weapons depot near Frankfurt am Main against a hostile takeover—by the German defense minister.

In hindsight, it may not be a coincidence that the same Strauss focused on sponsoring scientific research and development of various facilities in Germany to enrich uranium for nuclear energy. Germany today has some of the most advanced uranium enrichment facilities in the world—and the ability to develop nuclear weapons faster than almost any other nation.

But the preparations started much earlier.

“From the very start of World War ii, [Germans] have considered the possibility of losing this second round, as they did the first—and they have carefully, methodically planned, in such eventuality the third round,” Herbert W. Armstrong told listeners of his radio program on May 9, 1945.

In his 1944 book The Nazis Go Underground, Curt Riess detailed extensive plans to keep Nazism alive in the postwar years. Decades later, in 1996, Allied intelligence of these underground plans was declassified (the full report can be read in our booklet Germany’s Conquest of the Balkans).

This history should give us chills. Germany’s quest for military independence isn’t reactionary—it was planned all along.

Why It Is Happening

Mr. Armstrong said Germany’s plans would be successful. He based this forecast on Bible prophecy.

Revelation 17:8 describes a beast, symbolic of a major world power, that “was, and is not.” This beast exists, then vanishes—only to then “ascend out of the bottomless pit.”

Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry explains this prophecy in his booklet Prophesy Again:

During World War ii, we saw the Hitler-Mussolini axis, but then it disappeared from the scene. It “was not”! And yet, God says, “it is”! The Axis powers lost the war, but as Mr. Armstrong preached time and again, they just went underground—into “the bottomless pit” (verse 8). They’re still there—they’re just underground. God says, after that happens, they are going to ascend right back up!

The empire we are now seeing emerge isn’t new—it is the same empire that has plagued the European continent for centuries.

History and prophecy show that this empire will again bring much bloodshed and global military conflict before God intervenes. Even more important than understanding the history and prophecy of this empire is understanding why this European power is rising. Mr. Flurry explains:

We must remember not to blame the Holy Roman Empire for inflicting evil upon the nations of Israel. (If you don’t know who the nations of Israel are, request our book The United States and Britain in Prophecy.) “For God hath put in their hearts to fulfil his will, and to agree, and give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled” (Revelation 17:17). God has put it in the heart of this empire to fulfill His will. We are being punished because of “all our abominations.”

Anyone who scoffs at Germany’s ability to rise militarily fails to understand the powerful God who prophesied of it.