It’s the classic domino theory in action. During the early years of the Cold War, the West’s greatest fear was that communism would spread south from Russia and China, gradually gobbling up greater Asia, nation by nation, in a steady sweep south clear down to the South Pacific Ocean. The fear of this domino theory actually becoming a reality, with Asian nations falling, one by one, before the southward sweeping communist wave, drove the United States and its allies to war in Korea and Vietnam.

It now seems that our collective memory of history is so brief and fleeting that we cannot see the domino theory actually being put to practice before our very eyes, this time in the northern hemisphere. Consider.

Back before November 1989, Germany was a divided nation. That’s the way the victors in World War ii liked it. But by the last decade of the 1990s, the generation that really understood the historic reason why they preferred a divided Germany to one that is united, had all but died out. Come Nov. 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall toppled, and by Oct. 3, 1990, Germany was officially declared a united nation once again, a status that it had not enjoyed since the Allies marched into Berlin back in 1945. The very next year, the government of the newly united Germany enacted its first foreign-policy initiative: In December 1991 it officially recognized the secession of Croatia and Slovenia from greater Yugoslavia.

In time to come, if it is not yet generally recognized, the world will eventually realize that was Germany’s first tactical move in the great game of geopolitical dominos that has continued to this day, steadily advancing German hegemony south and east. And the game is not yet even half over. It progresses, with deliberate thought and intent of the military strategists, yet with often public protestations from German politicians and commentators as Germany is being “drawn into” peace-monitoring missions from the Balkans to Africa and beyond.

Most of the strategists who drew up the brilliant blueprint for the rise of Germany’s Fourth Reich are dead and buried. But they were the mentors of a second wave of bureaucrats, businessmen, policy formulators, administrators and especially military hierarchy who are eminent leaders in today’s Germany. And Germany is now stirring.

Having finally done penance for its past slaughterous ways, Germany has been encouraged in recent times, both by chancellors and popes, to have done with the past and move on to better things. Germany is starting to take on a fresh glow.

There is a combination of forces—a fresh face at the helm in the form of Angela “she can do no wrong” Merkel; refreshing news on its economy; the prestige of winning the medal count at this year’s Winter Olympics; the prospect of playing host to the soccer World Cup in June; having friendly Austria in the chair as current president of the European Union—coalescing to make 2006 Germany’s year. As all this hoopla possesses the mass media, few see another prospect looming in Germany’s favor in its true geopolitical—and military—context. The year 2006 could go down as the marker in history that found Germany consolidating its penetration of the great continent to its south: Africa.

Think on how the dominos have fallen south and east in Germany’s favor since the Berlin Wall came down.

nato, under U.S. leadership, fought the Balkan war that Germany’s first move in this great game started. But, when it came time to establish the ongoing maintenance of “peace,” who got the job in the key areas? Check Bosnia. Check Kosovo. Germany is entrenched now in both.

Germany readily acquiesced to sending 4,000 troops to Afghanistan after the U.S. and its allies had secured the country in the war against the Taliban. Germany remains entrenched in Afghanistan, a seemingly controllable situation, with close access to oil resources and the opportunity to influence the burgeoning illegal drug trade at its source. Yet Germany cleverly avoided becoming enmeshed in the increasingly uncontrollable mess in Iraq.

When the EU was called upon to run security patrols in the Mediterranean for a limited time, it was Germany that stepped up to the plate. The time limit on its original assignment came and went. It is still there, entrenched in the Med.

Security was weak in the Horn of Africa. Who should step into the breach in that vitally strategic sea gate but the German Navy. It remains there to this day.

Feeling its oats, Germany introduced the crisis in Darfur, northeastern Africa, in 2004 to the United Nations Security Council during its period holding the presidency. It has had troops there ever since.

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana this week indicated that the EU will step up its German-led mission in Darfur by the addition of more troops. Darfur is in oil-rich Sudan. Germany has an increasing military presence both on land in that nation and at sea in the crucial access to the oil transit gateway of the Gulf of Aden. Keep in mind that Germany is anxious to gain access to alternative energy sources after its main supplier, Russia, temporarily turned off the tap in the midst of winter.

Now there’s the Democratic Republic of the Congo, hitting the news this week with indications that Germany is agreeing “reluctantly” to place troops on the ground in yet another resource-rich, strategic location further south than Sudan, in central Africa.

Thus the dominos fall. But the danger is perceived by so few, for aren’t these just peace-keeping missions? But the point is, we have yet to witness a German withdrawal from any of these regions into which Germany has sent its troops! Fact is, when the domino falls to Germany, it is in there to stay! That’s the history and the currency of the situation.

But note, the dominos fall in a pattern—south and east. What’s the significance of this?

Peel open the pages of your Bible. Check the prophecy of Daniel 8:9. The prophecy is of a rising power that extends its influence south and east. And it’s a power that is based in the north, the northern hemisphere, Europe—in modern parlance, that crossroads of Europe called Mitteleuropa. Google that term and see what you come up with. Then request our booklet Daniel: Revelation and War and find out how this grand game of geopolitical dominos plays out. The end game is shockingly powerful! Yet it is chock-full of the greatest of hope for a lasting world peace that will literally extend for a thousand years across the whole globe!

But it all started when a wall came down in Europe and a powerful nation began rising up one more time to stretch its influence south and east—Germany’s grand Africa strategy.