Atlantic Rift

He was right that America would lose its alliance with Europe

The friendship between the U.S. and Europe is not what it appears to be.

Who would have thought, after the savagery of World War ii, that America and Germany would become allies? Yet soon after the smoke from that massive conflict cleared, Washington and Bonn laid the foundation for a close partnership. The United States established the Marshall Plan to rebuild Western Europe, especially Germany, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was launched, binding Europe and North America into a military alliance.

Biblical prophecy shows that this union was destined, from the beginning, to end in ruin. The fraying of the trans-Atlantic relationship we see today is the advancement of this inevitable ruin.

Herbert W. Armstrong had studied the Bible scriptures elucidating that truth. Under his guidance, the Plain Truth understood that the trans-Atlantic alliance would eventually rupture. “Economic recovery masks deep divisions that must eventually rip asunder the Atlantic alliance,” the Plain Truth wrote in September 1983.

In the decades since that article was written, the prophecy has greatly accelerated toward its fulfillment.

‘Can We Purchase Love With Money?’

In early 1952, as America began allowing Germany to rearm, Mr. Armstrong’s Good News magazine explained why the decision was misguided:

“The question … is causing careful observers to tremble! Does America dare arm Germany?

“Can we unite Europe and guide the colossal military machine we envision there by 1955? … Our leading generals in Europe adamantly warn that Germany is a calculated risk. What will a Germany, armed with American help, think of her new power? … Why will the diplomats think that today the hearts of the people in Germany are different from yesterday? Every one of those undemocratic nations when once armed has turned upon us. We are the hated ‘have’ nations, the ‘capitalist’ nations, the ‘imperialistic’ nations.

“The heart of the German people … has not been converted to our way of life. If they really would have come to love us since their defeat, would they now be trying to bargain for domination in Europe and threatening to withhold support from the cause of democracy against Russia? Is that the way love is manifested? Can we purchase love with money?” (Good News, April 1952; emphasis added throughout).

That was written over seven decades ago! Even back in 1952, Germany was fighting for domination of Europe—and America didn’t understand what it meant or chose not to understand. That has been Germany’s goal from the beginning.

Notice, though, how that article pinpointed the problem of America trying to buy Germany’s “love.” Prophecy reveals that this specific tendency, which grew considerably stronger in the decades that followed, was doomed from the start.

The Plain Truth wrote in February 1956: “America seems wedded to the idea that it can buy friends and allies around the world with ready American cash. We intend to hold friendly nations to us by generously supplying money and arms. But it isn’t working!”

The veracity of that statement is undeniable today. Consider the billions of dollars Washington has spent to try to buy allies such as Pakistan, Egypt and Afghanistan—nations that have marched toward radicalism regardless. American money has been pumped into numerous causes in South America, Asia and several other arenas. But none of this largesse has increased support for American policies or earned a jot of respect. The money isn’t talking. Now America is out of cash and has become desperate for foreign money to support its broken economy. These humanitarian efforts are a trap.

But biblical prophecy points in particular to the danger of America seeking an alliance with Germany. For an in-depth study of the specific scriptures that prophesy of the dangers of the U.S.-German alliance, read our booklets Nahum: An End-Time Prophecy for Germany and Ezekiel—The End-Time Prophet. (All of our literature is free.)

Scripture reveals that America would first try to strengthen this ill-fated relationship by pumping money into it, as that Plain Truth article said. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, this impulse led America—under the auspices of nato—to act as a willing lackey of Germany in the terrible Balkan Wars. The U.S.’s desire to please Germany in those wars ended up breaking the Yugoslav Republic into pieces and transforming the former Yugoslav states into virtual colonies of the rising German-led EU empire.

On December 1, 2009, the U.S. ambassador to Germany publicly declared that Germany is “Washington’s most important ally.” He said, “We need strong partners—and nowhere are there better or more committed partners than in Europe. And Germany is the centerpiece of the European Union.”

On February 2, 2013, Vice President Joe Biden echoed these sentiments in his keynote address to European leaders at the Munich Security Conference: “Simply put, President [Barack] Obama and I continue to believe that Europe is the cornerstone of our engagement with the rest of the world and is the catalyst for our global cooperation. It’s that basic. …

“[A] strong and capable Europe is profoundly in America’s interest, and I might add, presumptuously, the world’s interest. … Europe remains America’s indispensable partner of first resort.”

America no longer looks to Britain and its commonwealth for support. Until recently, U.S. leaders looked to the German-led European Union for support.

Meanwhile, as Mr. Armstrong predicted would happen, the EU’s antipathy toward America became more evident in the shadow of the global economic downturn that occurred in 2008. Europe blames the Anglo-American economic model for the crisis. It has taken draconian steps to smother New York’s and London’s financial leadership and to shift the global financial center to Brussels and Berlin. It has seized the lead as the world’s number one financial regulator and has exacted harsh penalties on giant American companies including Intel, Google and Microsoft, forcing these firms to play by European rules. As a direct consequence of the economic crash, all G-20 nations have agreed to permit the EU-controlled Financial Stability Board to influence their economies.

Evidence of Germany’s mistrust and animosity toward the United States is ample. This became especially apparent when Donald Trump became U.S. president in 2017, and even more so when he began his second term in 2025.

A Turbulent Undercurrent

In 2025, U.S. Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth referred to America’s European allies as “pathetic freeloaders.” These comments highlighted a shift in American attitudes toward Europe. Instead of viewing Germany as an indispensable partner, the Trump administration views Germany as a freeloader that should be defending itself.

The love affair between Europe and America is nearing its end as resentment on both sides poisons the trans-Atlantic partnership. After winning the 2025 German elections, Chancellor Friederich Merz said it was his “absolute priority” to make sure Europe achieves independence from the U.S.

The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace called Europe’s reaction to Donald Trump’s reelection a “paradigm shift.” “For Germans, the first 100 days of President Donald Trump’s administration have felt like a brutal, multipronged assault on all three pillars of the bilateral relationship with the United States: trade, security and shared values,” wrote senior fellow Sophia Besch. “Germany is acutely vulnerable to the threat of U.S. tariffs, with exports to the United States accounting for approximately 4 percent of its [gross domestic product]. Its security and defense policy is structured primarily around nato and oriented toward sustaining a continued U.S. presence in Europe—Germany hosts the largest contingent of U.S. forces on the Continent and stations American nuclear weapons on its territory. Trump’s initial months in office have cast doubt on the future of these arrangements. … Germany is deeply worried by the United States’ attack on the international order that has helped Germans thrive after the end of the Second World War, but it has not yet given up on defending that order—it sees no viable alternatives” (April 24, 2025).

In other words, Germans are blaming Donald Trump for a breakdown in the trans-Atlantic relationship. Yet as Mr. Armstrong pointed out, the relationship was never that deep.

The March 1974 Plain Truth said, “European antagonism toward the United States and its policies is now in the open. The next few years will bring forth more misunderstanding, conflicts of interest and, at times, outright hostility between the United States and Europe. Europe—including West Germany—will have to build its own unified armed forces, including nuclear weapons. Religious as well as political forces will play a key role in the future.”

The trend that began with the Balkan Wars—of Europe co-opting American power via nato in order to serve its own interests—is changing. nato played a key role in dismembering Yugoslavia for Germany. But after Trump’s reelection, Merz warned that “nato may soon be dead.” Merz and others do not like the level of control America has in nato and would prefer the EU develop an independent military force.

The U.S. has so far lent its power to such causes without much objection. And now, German military goals are increasingly intertwined into nato’s new “strategic concept.” But the undercurrent of what Mr. Armstrong called “conflicts of interest” and “outright hostility” is becoming ever more turbulent. In fact, after President Trump clashed with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office on February 28, 2025, over how to handle the Russo-Ukrainian War, the stock of publicly traded European defense contractors like Rheinmetall soared. The U.S. is reluctant to defend Ukraine from Russia, but Europe does not mind. Many elite Germans feel their nation has gotten all it can from the U.S. and are ready to move on. Some powerful Germans have been thinking more and more about the Holy Roman Empire; they want modern Germany to assume more power of its own in the spirit of that empire. They want to establish Europe as a mighty, German-led superpower.

A Nuclear Power?

Consider this additional grave concern: Under the auspices of nato, the U.S. has hundreds of B-61 nuclear gravity bombs stored in European countries. “The U.S. has supplied some 480 B-61 thermonuclear bombs to five so-called ‘nonnuclear states,’ including Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey,” Global Research wrote in February 2010.

As Europe cannibalizes nato, we should not be surprised if it devours these nuclear weapons as well. The air forces of each of these nato nations have personnel trained in arming and delivering this hardware. The increasing merger of the defense goals shared by nato and the EU has added to the rapid drawdown of U.S. forces from Europe. This removes obstacles for Europe to deploy a nuclear-armed international force.

In fact, America is even encouraging Europe to develop such a force. In the years since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the U.S. has agreed to sell 35 F-35 fighter jets to Germany to replace its aging Tornado fighter jets. These jets are being specifically modified to carry the U.S. nuclear bombs stored in Germany in the event of a conflict.

Mr. Armstrong spoke boldly about the weapons of mass destruction America has stored in Europe.

“You may be sure the West European leaders are conferring hurriedly and secretly about how and how soon they may unite and provide a united European military force so they can defend themselves!” he wrote in the April 1980 Plain Truth. “And so they will no longer have to give in meekly to Russia! And who will they blame for their humiliation and their necessity now to have a united Europe, with a united government, a common currency and a common military force as great or greater than either the ussr or the U.S.A.? They will blame the United States! And when they are strong enough to assert themselves, [they] will first attack Britain for standing firm with the United States, and then they will return a lot of hydrogen bombs the U.S. has stored now in Europe!”

That, shockingly, is the ultimate fate of the American-European relationship!

Modern Europe is rapidly growing independent of the U.S. and is strengthening its position as a world power, just as the Plain Truth prophesied. The growing rift between the U.S. and the EU is tipping the balance of power decisively in Europe’s—particularly Germany’s—favor. This should stir the deepest alarm within America’s leaders, if they only knew where it was leading! They ignore Mr. Armstrong’s warnings at their own peril.