Germany to Russia: ‘Stay out of the Baltics’

Deepening cooperation between France and Germany was evident when President Macron hosted Chancellor Merz at his summer home last week. In our feature story this morning, Josué Michels puts their relationship—including talk of joint nuclear capability—in its grave prophetic context.

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Germany to Russia: “Stay out of the Baltics”: The German Navy is leading more than a dozen countries in a major military exercise in the Baltic Sea, the Bundeswehr’s largest exercises this year, focused on securing sea lanes and transporting troops to Lithuania.

Earlier this year, Germany opened its first permanent foreign military base since World War ii in Lithuania. Now it is showcasing its ability to sustain its presence in a conflict. While Russia is warring to absorb parts of Ukraine, Germany is beefing up its presence in Lithuania. It sends a clear message to Russia: Here is the line; don’t dare cross it.

• The exercise, “Quadriga 2025,” involves over 8,000 soldiers, 40 vessels, 30 aircraft and 1,800 vehicles.
• The 14 participating countries include all the nato allies that connect to the Baltic Sea, plus the U.S., the UK, France and Canada.
• Germany’s chief of defense, Gen. Carsten Breuer, remarked, “We are seeing close up today what it means in concrete terms when Germany takes international responsibility” and acts as a “reliable supply hub for nato.”

Germany is using the exercises to practice protecting Lithuania’s logistics network, fuel and food supplies, and important infrastructure. It is also testing drones and drone-defense strategies.

For centuries, the Germanic people have sought to control the Baltics.

• Centuries ago, this involved brutally converting its inhabitants to Catholicism (Lithuania is, to this day, a Catholic-majority country).
• In World War ii, it meant eradicating Jews.

Lithuania’s growing alliance with Germany, and its militarizing to suit Germany’s purposes, shows that history is repeating—just as Gerald Flurry explained in “Lithuania in Prophecy.”

Is marriage bad for women? After the world buzzed over Taylor Swift’s engagement last month, articles appeared like this from msnbc, stating as fact that while marriage may benefit men, “it is widely known that single women are thought to be happier than their married counterparts.”

Is that true? Marriage is good for men, but makes women miserable?

Professor and author Jean M. Twenge scrutinized the data and, in an Atlantic article, concluded the opposite.

• A YouGov survey of American women from March found that “Married mothers are actually happier than unmarried women and married women without children.”
• The General Social Survey in 2023 showed married parents likelier to report being “very happy” than unmarried and childless people.

The data shows that marriage cuts loneliness in half and increases physical affection and touch, which reduce stress and brings other health benefits.

Twenge notes how the false narrative that marriage and motherhood make women unhappy is contributing to steeply falling marriage and birth rates (now at a record low in the U.S.), along with surging levels of loneliness, pessimism and other ills.

There are many reasons people choose not to have children or not to get married, but false messages about happiness should not be one of them. The articles I read long ago were right that parenting (and marriage) can often be exhausting. But they ignored the sense of meaning that comes from parenthood and the connection of physical touch at the core of family life.

Marriage and family are wonderful gifts from their Author, our Creator, who wants us to be happy. Beware junk “scientific” studies conducted by people who reject His Word and seek to prove the opposite. Trust God. Learn His transcendent purpose for creating marriage in our free booklet Why Marriage—Soon Obsolete?

In related news …

U.S. population to shrink for first time ever: That’s according to a forecast from the American Enterprise Institute. Why? 1) declining fertility; and 2) President Trump’s immigration crackdown.

• In 2025, 519,000 more people in America are forecast to be born than to die.
• But net migration is forecasted at 525,000—meaning, half a million more people leave the country than arrive.
• Result: America’s population shrinks by 6,000.

This is the first time since America’s founding that the population has dropped. Because of declining birth rates, last year would have been the first such drop, but immigration made up the difference.

Only crazy fanatics believe rights come from God? Remember Tim Kaine? He was Hillary Clinton’s running mate in the 2016 election and still serves as a senator for Virginia. On Wednesday he made this astonishing statement in a congressional meeting:

The notion that rights don’t come from laws and don’t come from the government, but come from the Creator—that’s what the Iranian government believes. It’s a theocratic regime that bases its rule on sharia law and targets Sunnis, Bahá’ís, Jews, Christians and other religious minorities. And they do it because they believe that they understand what natural rights are from their Creator. So the statement that our rights do not come from our laws or our governments is extremely troubling.

Kaine is lumping Thomas Jefferson and the rest of America’s Founders in with the Ayatollah Khamanei. They enshrined this foundational principle in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” This extraordinary statement distinguished America from every other nation.

But Kaine isn’t alone. Many officials and bureaucrats show they agree when they exercise authority over citizens arbitrarily. If God gives us natural rights, no man can take them away. If they are merely bestowed by government, then government can strip them at will.

IN OTHER NEWS

Germany unveiled Europe’s most powerful supercomputer on Friday, a machine that can perform 1 quintillion calculations per second (that’s a 1 followed by 18 zeros). Called Jupiter, the half-billion-dollar machine is powered by 24,000 Nvidia chips. A spokesman said it would be used for “high-precision simulations and the training of the largest AI models.” Germany is hoping it will help them catch up to the U.S. and China on AI.

Russia and China conducted their first joint submarine patrol in August. In a days-long operation covering over 2,000 nautical miles, the two nations strengthened naval cooperation by simulating evacuation emergencies and attacks. Military cooperation between the two Asian giants continues to build. Read Adam Jones’s In Brief to learn more.

Trump really knows how to troll his critics: Yesterday he signed an executive order to revert the name of the Department of Defense to the name used until 1949: Department of War. Congress will have to sign off to complete the change, but the order authorizes the Pentagon to use Department of War as a “secondary title” and Pete Hegseth to call himself the secretary of war. When he first floated the idea on August 25, Trump said, “It used to be called the Department of War, and it had a stronger sound. And, as you know, we won World War i, we won World War ii, we won everything. Now we have a Department of Defense. We’re defenders. I don’t know. … We want defense, but we want offense too, if that’s OK.” The president knows this will set off his critics—even to invite comparisons to Hitler’s 1935 order to rename the Reichswehr to the “Reich Ministry of War.” But he is signaling to enemy nations his willingness to use American power. And the left’s hyperventilating seems to entertain him.