Suddenly, it seems, some of the more astute of analysts are coming to grips with the grave dangers posed by a resurgent Germany.

One of the most outstanding elements of national power is national character. Lacking any real appreciation of the history of the leading nations of today, and of their interaction with other nations, geopolitical theorists often fail in their efforts to predict the true nature of the emerging global order.

Perhaps the most egregious foreign-policy mistake of this current U.S. administration was its failure to appreciate the huge symbolism, to Germany, of last week’s 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall—an event that has led 20 years later to the evolution of a whole new global order. Either the remaining living principal players or the leaders of the nations directly involved in the events that led up to and immediately followed as a consequence of the fall of the Berlin Wall, were in Berlin to celebrate that keystone geopolitical event.

The U.S. president sent a video.

Incredulous, conservative commentator Newt Gingrich wrote, “Some consider President Obama’s refusal to attend the commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall in Germany … an outrage. I consider it a tragedy. To commemorate, after all, is to remember. And Americans need to remember, not just that the Wall fell, but why it fell. We need to remember that the Berlin Wall was the symbol of more than just the Cold War, more than just the division of Europe” (Washington Examiner,November 6).

In the National Review, Rich Lowry scathingly commented, “Obama’s failure to go to Berlin is the most telling nonevent of his presidency. It’s hard to imagine any other American president eschewing the occasion” (November 3).

Right-wing radio personality Rush Limbaugh railed, “[T]his is unprecedented. An American president not showing up at one of the most famous sites for the destruction of tyranny and the outbreak of freedom? Being invited by the chancellor, the leader of Germany, and not going?”

Expressing a German perspective on the Obama administration’s snub, the German Spiegel Online headlined, “Barack Is Too Busy.”

The whole orientation of current U.S. foreign policy boggles the mind. The problem is it is being driven by a cabal of radicals who eschew any reference to American power and who work avidly to portray the United States as just another nation like all the others.

Nothing could be further from the truth!

The United States of America has, since the close of world War ii to this moment, been the most uniquely powerful nation on Earth, and the singularly most blessed. That reality was not a consequence of happenstance. It was by the deliberate will of Almighty God, having declared it would be so in fulfillment of His binding prophecies of over three millennia ago (read our book The United States and Britain in Prophecy for proof of this).

But just as the Creator prophesied the rise to greatness of the American peoples, He also prophesied that their failure to recognize the source of their blessings would lead to a degree of national profligacy that would result in their rapid demise. That rapid descent of America was prophesied to happen in the same vein as it has happened to its sister Anglo-Saxon nation, Great Britain, and its dominions, under leadership that reflects the ignorance and the naivety of a child (Isaiah 3:1-4).

The descent of the Anglo-Saxon nations, the biblical nations of Ephraim and Manasseh, was prophesied to trigger a shaking of the nations, globally, and the rise of non-Israelite nations to positions of power over them. Chief of these is prophesied to be a great northern power, led by the biblical nation of Assyria, none other than the modern Germany of today!

“Germany is about to re-engage with Europe. Having turned inwards for the best part of a decade, Germany is ready again to become an active, even assertive, player in the European Union.” In Germany, “unity is, after 20 years, not exactly Mission Accomplished, but it is well enough advanced for the chancellor to begin a new chapter. Germany … is about to become less mealy-mouthed, more active globally, readier to lead” (Times, November 10).

But, lead to what?

The problem is that the true intentions of Germany’s elites—which remain the same as the intentions of their forefathers of the first half of the 20th century—are masked by the seemingly benign, smiling, motherly image of its current chancellor. “Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, has the gift of making Germany seem routine, and worthy of little apprehension” (Telegraph,November 13). Therein lies the grand deception.

“When the Berlin Wall came down, Margaret Thatcher was not the only person who worried that Germany might be about to become too interesting again. The reunited Germany, celebrating the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Wall this week, is a very powerful country, the most powerful in Europe. Yet under the leadership of Angela Merkel, the scientist from the East, it arouses very little apprehension” (ibid.).

Part of Angela Merkel’s makeup that has contributed to her political success has been her inscrutable demeanor. It’s a character trait that she shares with her Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, and perhaps explains why the two have never been on friendly terms politically. As Andrew Gimson observed, “Nobody can read Mrs. Merkel’s mind, a talent she developed while growing up in East Germany …. To be allowed by the regime to build a successful career as a scientist, without actually joining the ruling Party of Socialist Unity (though she was active in its youth wing), required a prodigious capacity to veil her own opinions, to seem unthreatening and to concentrate in a pragmatic way on the task in hand” (ibid.).

The German Spiegel Online described Chancellor Merkel as a “pragmatist without illusions.” It was the pragmatic, inscrutable side of Merkel that was at the forefront during her inaugural address to the German parliament upon commencing her second term in office. “Merkel spent the majority of her speech before the German Bundestag on Tuesday discussing the [global economic] crisis. She sought to portray herself as a woman of action, as someone whose sharp mind will lead Germany through tough times. She hardly used any other word in her address as often as ‘decisiveness.’ She spoke of ‘freedom in responsibility’ and of using it to lead Germany to a new position of strength” (November 10).

Yet the inscrutable, pragmatic chancellor has certainly let it be known of late just where she sees Germany headed, especially in relation to the United States. During her speech before Congress, she stressed that the U.S. needed to become bound with other nations in a collective response to the global crisis. In fact, she declared that a new global order would be necessary to effect the changes needed to address the current crisis.

But it was back in Germany that Chancellor Merkel warmed to her theme. “On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the opening of the Berlin Wall, the German chancellor is calling for the establishment of a new world order. Monday, at a conference focusing on the consequences of the gdr’s collapse, Angela Merkel declared that the United States must be prepared to subordinate itself to multinational organizations, because without ‘more multinational cooperation’ this will ‘not be a peaceful world.’ Merkel’s remarks reflect Germany’s drive, over the past 20 years, to break U.S. hegemony and itself become a world power. Berlin has significantly increased its power, with its persistent expansionist policy over the past few years—also through military means” (German-Foreign-Policy.com, November 10).

In a further observation of Chancellor Merkel’s political persona, Andrew Gimson sums up the demeanor that has masked the drawing of the U.S. into the German trap: “She is a ruthless power player who does what is needed, yet she conveys an impression of magnified ordinariness …. Mrs. Merkel has an excellent sense of humor and often smiles, but people no more know what lies behind her smile than what lies behind the Mona Lisa’s” (op. cit.).

Well, the German chancellor has recently given us a hint of the grander strategy that she is being empowered by the German elites to bring to fruition. Even the Washington Post is beginning to tumble to the motives that lie behind the Merkel mask, observing that united Germany has grown “more powerful, more influential and more dominant than ever before” (November 3).

Referring to the Washington Post piece, German-Foreign-Policy.com observed, “Thanks to Angela Merkel, this has not led to ‘rising anxiety and mumbling about the Fourth Reich,’ explains the journal. Her personal manner provokes ‘no jealousy or competitiveness among the alpha males who run large countries’ and she inspires ‘no fear among the citizens of smaller ones.’ Merkel speaks constantly of ‘friendship,’ after which ‘she returns home and works to make Germany stronger and more dominant in the region. And everyone smiles.’ This explanation overlooks the ties, with which Germany binds EU states to itself, making open criticism nearly impossible. But it does show the obvious irritations that are beginning to spread in the U.S. establishment over the German challenge” (op. cit.).

Over the past four years, that irritation has, in large part been limited due to a German chancellor who “does not throw her weight around, or behave like a loose cannon. Her speeches tend to be dreary. She spends her life negotiating, seeing as interminable negotiation is the chief activity in German and also in European politics. And by this unglamorous method she has become the arbiter of Germany, and also of Europe” (Telegraph, November 13).

Yet once again we have to point to the prophetic words of Herbert Armstrong—who forecast “the German challenge” decades before Germany reunited (Plain Truth, October 1985):

The Germans on both sides want to be united once again. There is now a dynamic movement toward a united Europe—a resurrection of the medieval Holy Roman Empire. …Do not discount the possibility that this resurrection of the medieval Holy Roman Empire may start by some arrangement to reunite East and West Germany first. Before World War ii, a mutual accord had been made between Germany and Russia. History often repeats itself.The prophecies of Revelation 13 and 17 and Daniel 2 and 7 show definitely that such a reunited Europe is coming—and soon! That of Daniel 2:33 shows half of this united Europe will consist of Eastern European nations, and half of Western. They comprise the toes and feet of Nebuchadnezzar’s great dream image, to be destroyed by Christ’s coming again to Earth in supreme supernatural power and glory to rule all nations and bring us world peace!This reunification of Europe is in the sure word of prophecy. But the union will not cleave together, even as the iron and clay of Daniel 2:33 could not cleave together. But when it does come into fulfillment, very soon now, it will quickly be replaced by a real world peace that shall last for the next thousand years. And that will be for the happiness and good of all nations, the Russians, all other Europeans, the Americas and all Africans and Asians. …[A]t last, after 6,000 years of human trial and error and woes and sufferings, a united one world, and world peace at last—a world truly to be built by the Lord Eternal.