Behind the scenes, certain leaders within the European Union (which until recently has been seen as an ally of the United States) are becoming aggressive in the push to take advantage of America’s growing internal weakness. The EU is maneuvering to restrain American power, seeking its own superpower status.

The question is, will such a move be to the benefit of world peace or to its detriment? Does the world need another superpower to either balance the power of the U.S., or to shore it up so as to effect a reasonable stability in international relations?

More importantly, should that power be a European combine?

A European superpower could be just the stopper to dam the flood of Islam into Europe and hasten Europe’s return to its cultural roots.

Following a decade of seeming indifference to Islam’s incursion northward right up to the doorsteps of Rome, Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam and as far north as Scandinavia, recent crises have provoked Europe to begin developing legislation to curb the flow of Muslim immigrants. The Madrid train bombings caused a change of government in Spain. Islamic youth rioting in France last autumn and again this spring is resulting in increasing calls for the government to move to limit Islamic incursion on the French way of life. In Germany, recent ructions in the school system blamed on Islamic youth sparked an uproar in that country. Many Europeans are finally seeing the need to speak with a united voice against the impact of extremist Islamic fundamentalism on their way of life, even posing a threat to the continuance of the grand European vision of unification.

This common Islamic threat to European culture, religion and way of life is increasingly becoming the catalyst to weld the 25 fractious nation-states that comprise the greatest single trading bloc in the world into a singular, cohesive and cooperative political entity that can speak with one voice in forums such as the United Nations.

Another reason that a European superpower would be beneficial to the drive for world peace, so the argument goes, is to balance the situation in the Middle East, especially in relation to Israel.

It was no mean gesture by the newly formed government in Israel that led former Prime Minister Shimon Peres to visit the pope within days of the recent Israeli elections. Israel needs a friend. It particularly needs a friend in Europe, where anti-Jewish rhetoric has been heard increasingly, even in some nations’ parliaments, and anti-Zionist sentiment and behavior is increasing across that continent. The papacy, under John Paul ii, sought public forgiveness from the Jews for its historic persecution of those peoples and sought reconciliation with Jewry through much diplomatic action over the past quarter-century.

Ties between the Vatican and Israel have never been closer. Influential voices in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv see the pope as benefactor and as a friend who could influence European opinion in their favor. An Israeli nation with a united European superpower on its side would provide powerful resistance to those who seek to wipe Israel off the map, so the argument goes.

Within the EU, Germany in particular has sought to muscle in on the Middle East peace process. Former German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer assumed a personal mandate to effect continual diplomacy between the Israelis and the Palestinians in efforts to gain an outcome acceptable to all parties involved. The EU remains strongly committed to maintaining a lead role in the peace process. Superpower status, should it be assumed by the EU, would be seen to greatly magnify the voice of the EU in Middle Eastern affairs, in particular on the burning issue of the peace process.

All the above arguments are entirely consistent with current U.S. foreign policy. America increasingly lacks friends in the international arena where global politics are played out.

Another void the U.S. hopes a European superpower would fill is the need for American allies. It seems that wherever the U.S. turns these days, it is met by jeering accusations and deep suspicion, its diplomatic representatives attacked verbally, if not physically, within host countries to the point that, far from being seen as a broker of peace among nations as it once was, it is viewed now as a warmongering imperialist power of the most voracious kind.

In reaction to all this, certain foreign-policy exponents within the U.S. insist that unless the European Union adds military muscle to its already incredible economic power and comes to speak with a singular influential voice in global affairs, the world will suffer for it. Not only will the U.S. lack support in its efforts for world peace, but the danger will grow that other powers—China, the rapidly developing Indo-Asian powers, pan-Islam, or even Russia—will fill the gap and tip the balance of power against the West, risking the loss of all that this ancient civilization has contributed to the benefit of mankind over the centuries.

Given this scenario, the U.S. would dearly love to cultivate a powerful European ally with which to join in its mission to spread the gospel of U.S.-style democracy globally, roll back the tide of extremist Islamic terror, and trade on happily with the rest of the world forever into the midnight sun.

Dream on!

The plain fact is, such a scenario is a diabolical illusion! Far from a united Europe ever becoming a positive influence for maintaining global peace and order, least of all in tandem with the U.S., the European Union is destined to become the greatest threat to world peace in the entirety of man’s history.

In the past, the Trumpet has repeatedly shown our readers where current events are heading. We have made confident predictions about the outcome of world events, even pinpointing particular personalities to watch in respect of the impact that they will have on future world events. We have enough evidence in print for you to check out the consistency with which our predictions have come to pass, to date. That often-pinpoint accuracy of prediction is not of our own doing. Without the decades of labor of Herbert Armstrong, working to restore the true foundation of all knowledge, and the Trumpet building on that foundation, we would just be another news source. But we are demonstrably not!

If you are a doubter, check the archive of articles on our website. Better still, request our special collectors’ edition of the Trumpet, its cover titled “He Was Right!”, and you will be startled at the accuracy of Mr. Armstrong’s predictions about the many world events that have fulfilled Bible prophecies declared during his lifetime and fulfilled subsequent to his death. And the earliest, most consistent of those predictions? That a united Germany would rise up to lead a great European superpower that would dominate the globe, under the spiritual influence of an ancient, pervasive religion—to wreak its havoc on the nations of Israel in their modern form, actually enslaving them, and literally ruling the world for a prophetic hour of time!