Who’d have thought, amid the butchery of World War ii, that America and Germany would ever be allies? Yet soon after war’s end, the foundation for an unlikely partnership was laid. The United States established the Marshall Plan to rebuild Western Europe, especially Germany, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization launched, binding Europe and North America in a military alliance.
If you understand biblical prophecy, you know that this union, from the beginning, was bound to end in ruin. The fraying of the transatlantic relationship we see today is merely an unfolding of this inevitability.
Under the guidance of Herbert W. Armstrong, the Plain Truth newsmagazine had this understanding. Do you remember the Plain Truth? At the peak of its circulation in the 1980s, 8.4 million copies went out each month—more than Time and Newsweek combined. It is remarkable to review what that unique magazine said about this alliance in light of current events.
“Economic recovery masks deep divisions that must eventually rip asunder the Atlantic alliance,” the Plain Truth wrote nearly three decades ago, in September 1983.
Three decades before that, in April 1952, as America began to lead in allowing Germany to rearm, staff writer Herman Hoeh explained why this effort was so misguided: “The heart of the German people, indoctrinated with Nazism, has not been converted to our way of life. If they really … have come to love us since their defeat, would they now be trying to bargain for domination in Europe …? Is that the way love is manifested? Can we purchase love with money?” (Good News, emphasis mine throughout).
Again, 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!”
These statements apply more today than ever. The U.S. has spent billions trying to purchase allies such as Pakistan and Egypt—nations that continue their march toward radicalism regardless; American dollars have been pumped into numerous causes in South America, Asia and other arenas. None of this largesse has increased support for American policies or earned a jot of respect. The money isn’t talking. These efforts are a trap.
But biblical prophecy points in particular to the danger in America seeking an alliance with Germany. And America’s tendency to try to buy Germany’s “love” has grown unnaturally strong.
As the Plain Truth alluded to, America is prophesied to try to strengthen this ill-fated relationship. (You can read about these prophecies in our booklets Nahum: An End-Time Prophecy for Germany and Ezekiel: The End-Time Prophet). It was this impulse that led America (under the auspices of nato) to act as a willing lackey of Germany (itself under cover of the EU common foreign policy) in the Balkan wars that fragmented the Yugoslav Republic and ended with the former Yugoslavia’s constituent states becoming virtual colonies of the rising European empire.
This forecast again echoed on Dec. 1, 2009, when America’s ambassador to Germany publicly declared that Germany is “Washington’s most important ally.” “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,” he said. Many American leaders have encouraged Europe, particularly Germany, to take a stronger leadership role in the world; even President Barack Obama has urged Europeans to assume “the burdens of global leadership.”
America thoroughly trusts Europe and sees the relationship as mutually beneficial. Europe, however, has a different view.
When the European commissioner for external affairs said, upon President Obama’s inauguration, that he anticipated a “more balanced relationship” between Europe and America, he meant balanced in favor of more European power and less American power.
As the Plain Truth suggested would happen, the EU’s antipathy toward America became plain in the shadow of the global economic meltdown. Europe blames the Anglo-American economic model for the crisis. It has tried to smother New York’s and London’s financial leadership through burdensome regulation so as to shift the world’s financial center to Brussels/Berlin. It has seized the lead as the world’s top financial regulator. It has exacted harsh penalties on giant American companies including Intel, Google and Microsoft, forcing American firms to play by Europe’s rules. As a direct consequence of the economic crash, all G-20 nations have signed up to permit the EU-controlled Financial Stability Board to regulate their economies. America has subjected itself to Europe’s economic rule. It has placed enormous faith in Europe’s beneficence and sense of fair play.
Where is this leading? Again let’s turn to the prophetically guided forecasting of Mr. Armstrong’s Plain Truth for the startling answer.
Read what was published in the March 1974 edition: “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—includingthen] 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.” [
Though these “misunderstandings, conflicts of interest and … outright hostility” may at times be obscured by America’s prophesied desperation to become “lovers” with Europe, this is the inescapable underlying reality. This is now happening.
The trend that began with the Balkan wars—where Europe co-opts American power via nato to serve its own interests—also continues. Thanks to European machinations, nato has metamorphosed radically from its form at its creation as a protector and defender of free democracies against the forces of tyranny. It is now ever more linked with the EU, pursuing that empire’s goals. nato is scheduled to draft a new Strategic Concept—a new reason for being—this year. This is certain to reflect a new homogeneity with the strategic military goals of the German High Command under the cloak of the Western European Union.
An additional grave concern is the fact that, under the auspices of nato, the U.S. has about 200 B61 nuclear gravity bombs stored in European countries. As Brad Macdonald recently explained, nato’s new Strategic Concept could place these bombs in the hands of the EU. Mr. Armstrong wrote about this prospect in the April 1980 Plain Truth: “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! … And when they are strong enough to assert themselves, they will first attack Britain for standing firm with the U.S., 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 as prophesied in the Bible. For America to goad Germany into accepting combat roles outside its borders is terribly naive.
The EU is growing more 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 power balance 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 peril.
If you want to see more on how accurate the Plain Truth’s Bible-based news analysis and forecasting really was, you need a copy of our new booklet He Was Right. Just this week, the Trumpet staff is sending a completely revised and updated copy of this booklet (originally published 10 years ago) to the printer. It chronicles an array of predictions, forecasts and prophecies, printed over a period of five decades by Herbert W. Armstrong and the Plain Truth, that have since come to pass! It is an inspiring vindication of the inerrancy of biblical prophecy. Order a free copy today. •
