The European Union approved a naval mission to the Red Sea on Monday, perhaps its most dangerous and important mission yet. Operation Aspides aims to secure merchant shipping and has orders to fire on the militants only if attacked first—and such attacks are expected.

European warships and airborne early warning and control systems will patrol the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden and surrounding waters. But the mission is as much about securing trade routes as it is about testing a united European response. Fearing a nuclear Iran, Russian expansion and Donald Trump’s return to the White House, the EU is testing its military muscle.

Instead of joining a mission led by the United States or nato, the EU went through its own bureaucratic levels. This demonstrates strategic coordination, planning and long-term strategy, which Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry predicted in “The Battle for the Red Sea”:

Disrupting Red Sea trade hurts Israel—but it is also a direct attack on Europe. After the Houthis’ brazen December 9 declaration, the world’s largest shipping companies announced they would halt delivery through the Red Sea and instead sail around South Africa to reach the West. Four of the five largest shipping companies are European: the Swiss-Italian Mediterranean Shipping Co., Danish A.P. Moller-Maersk, French shipping group cma cgm, and Germany’s Hapag-Lloyd, which is headquartered in Hamburg. Disrupting Red Sea commerce allows the Houthis to hurt Germany in a way Hezbollah cannot.

You cannot overstate how alarming this type of activity is to Germany and other European nations! They simply cannot permit Iran to obstruct these crucial trade routes. Sometime soon, Iran’s pushy behavior will provoke a fearsome counterblow! Even Iran doesn’t realize how dangerous its actions really are—but Bible prophecy reveals it!

Iran-backed Houthi terrorists from Yemen are firing on merchant ships to force an end to Israel’s attacks against their terrorist friends in the Gaza Strip. But they are provoking Germany the most.

Before the EU gave approval, Germany had already sent a frigate to station near the Red Sea to await deployment. Vice Adm. Jan Christian Kaack explained: “As we are going into a fierce battle, only a ship that can assert itself with its weaponry comes into question, one whose crew is 100 percent trained to deal with the threat. The Hessen frigate we have selected is prepared for this. It is our gold standard, so to speak.”

The timing of the mission is also noteworthy. Its approval followed a Munich Security Conference that was dominated by fear, uncertainty and complaints of inaction. Euractiv wrote on February 18: “None of the conference participants would have wanted to dispute that a heavy feeling—that Europe has reached the end of peaceful times as we’ve known them since the end of World War ii—hung like thick air in the packed Munich corridors.”

The “end of peaceful times” has reached Europe. Few realize how prophetic this statement is.

Based on Bible prophecy, we have forecast for years that peaceful times will soon end—and the cause will revolve around the Red Sea. Read “The Battle for the Red Sea” to understand why.