WorldWatch
Europe
Europe is looking east. Poland has announced it will once again boost its military spending, this time by 10 percent, making it nato’s highest defense spender in comparison to the size of its economy. It has ordered thousands of new tanks, fighter jets and artillery pieces and a new air defense system.
Perhaps because of this, France and Germany are eager to cement good relations with Poland. Germany managed to maneuver Poland’s more right-wing, German-skeptic government out of power last year, installing former European Council President Donald Tusk as prime minister. Tusk is cementing his hold on power by prosecuting his predecessor’s men.
French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz are reviving the so-called Weimar Triangle to take advantage of this. The three are working together to spread the European Union’s influence in Eastern Europe. Scholz met with Tusk in Warsaw on July 1.
The Bible pictures the rising, modern European empire as a statue with two legs—symbolizing an eastern and western component. Developments in Poland are helping to build the eastern leg. Read our Trends article “Why the Trumpet Watches Europe’s Ongoing Unification Project.”
Meanwhile, Germany has been discussing military reform. Defense Minister Boris Pistorius laid out reforms on June 12, taking a step toward conscription. Young men will have to answer a questionnaire about their interest and ability to serve. The military will use this to select recruits for six months of service, with the option to voluntarily extend their service to two years.
German weapons exports increased by 30 percent in the first half of 2024 compared to the same period last year, according to data published by the Economics Ministry on June 30. Between January 1 and June 18, Germany exported over $8 billion worth, equivalent to 60 percent of 2023’s total ($13 billion). Two thirds of those exports went to Ukraine. Saudi Arabia also entered the top five of German weapons importers. Germany stopped selling arms to Saudi Arabia in 2018 due to the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, but it resumed sales after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attack on Israel.
“Germany also needs to beef up its own armaments,” former Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg told Catholic magazine Herder Korrespondenz. “We need European and German armed forces that—embedded in nato—are able to effectively defend against external attacks or deter them from the outset. In case of doubt, even without the [United States],” he said.
How much rearmament is necessary? Guttenberg said: “Enough to deter a potential aggressor in advance from taking military action, as he would otherwise have to fear a military defeat.” To achieve this goal, Europe needs “conventional equipment for air, sea and ground” as well as “first-class cybercapabilities, state-of-the-art missile defense shields, space presence and—unfortunately—also sufficient nuclear deterrence potential.”
Watch for Germany to continue to rise as a dominant military power.
Middle East
Following President Ebrahim Raisi’s death in a helicopter crash on May 19, Iranians elected Masoud Pezeshkian as their new president on July 5. The real power in Iran lies with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. But while Khamenei sets Iran’s general direction, the president directs day-to-day policy. Pezeshkian is now one of the Middle East’s main movers and shakers.
Campaigning as a reformer, Pezeshkian supports Iran’s hijab laws, yet says the government has gone too far in enforcement. Pezeshkian has said he wants to open up Iran to the West. He has called for reviving the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear deal. To this end, he appointed Abbas Araghchi, architect of the old deal, as his foreign minister.
The old deal all but ensured Iran could acquire nuclear weapons while unfreezing billions of dollars in sanctions relief. Iran could be looking for a similar deal, perhaps before Donald Trump returns to power. Or it may be presenting Pezeshkian as a more moderate face for a Trump administration to work with.
Daniel 11:40 predicts an end-time clash between “the king of the north” and “the king of the south.” In his booklet The King of the South, Gerald Flurry explains this to be a war between a resurrected European Holy Roman Empire and radical Islam, led by Iran. Iran has grown to provoke Europe and the West at large through its terror sponsorship and other means. Iran has a lot of power, but has yet to reach its Daniel 11:40 apex. Expect it to continue waxing stronger and more aggressive despite any so-called reformist leadership.
Fourteen Palestinian factions signed the Beijing Declaration on July 23 under mediation by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. China has yet to release the agreement’s text, but Wang stated the agreement is a “historic moment for the cause of Palestine’s liberation.” He said, “The standout highlight is consensus around establishing an interim national reconciliation government to manage Gaza after the war.” Photographs from the meeting show representatives from Fatah and Hamas attended.
Lebanese outlet Al Mayadeen received a copy of the Beijing Declaration and said that “the participants agreed to form a temporary national unity government after the approval of Palestinian factions and the president of the Palestinian Authority. This government will exercise its authority ‘over all Palestinian territories,’ including the West Bank, [Jerusalem] and the Gaza Strip.”
Fatah, which controls the Palestinian Authority, and Hamas fight each other almost as much as they do Israel. A reconciliation bringing Hamas into the PA would be a game changer in Israel’s war against terror and would put Hamas on the doorsteps of thousands of Israeli settlers in the West Bank and Jerusalem. The Trumpet expects West Bank politics to get more radical (read Jerusalem in Prophecy).
With Israel’s success in the Gaza war, media reports indicate Hamas is looking for a new headquarters—and that place might be Iraq. Much of Hamas’s top political leadership lives in Qatar, but Qatar is reportedly getting fed up with Hamas and is forcing it out. The Institute for the Study of War reported July 9 that Hamas has begun transferring equipment to Baghdad. Meanwhile, the National, a paper of the United Arab Emirates, claimed the Iraqi government is supporting the move.
On paper, Iraq is a U.S. ally. U.S. forces remain in Iraq helping the government fight terrorism. Yet Iraq has no apparent problems in giving Hamas safe refuge—even as U.S. troops have been killed fighting other Iran-backed forces there.
In our December 1994 issue, Mr. Flurry wrote an article titled “Is Iraq About to Fall to Iran?” Saddam Hussein ruled, and Iraq was the region’s biggest bully; Iran was a pariah state with relatively little power. Yet Mr. Flurry’s prediction from nearly 30 years ago, based on Bible prophecy, has proved to be accurate. Despite America’s best efforts to prevent it, Iraq has fallen under the sway of Iran and the forces of radical Islam.
Asia
On July 8, Russia fired 38 missiles at civilian targets in five Ukrainian cities, its largest strike in months. Ukraine’s forces intercepted 30 missiles, but eight broke through defenses, at least one of which struck the largest children’s hospital in Ukraine. The strikes killed 42 civilians, including five children, and injured more than 150. As Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry wrote in our May-June 2023 issue, “The Russia-Ukraine War is giving the world a vivid picture of the scale of evil Putin is willing to commit. … Putin is an evil, ruthless, vindictive agent with Soviet-style methods of psychological warfare, assassination and war. He has disgusting and devastating policies that are sick to the core and even satanic!” (“The Ukraine War Will Not Start World War III!”)
China’s companies are helping Russian firms develop attack drones for use in its war against Ukraine, according to a July 3 Bloomberg report. China has also supplied Russia with satellite imagery for military use, as well as significant quantities of militarily useful semiconductors, ball bearings, trucks, excavators and machine tools for tanks. With previous assistance, China has managed to avoid explicitly violating Western sanctions that outlaw providing Russia with lethal aid. But Bloomberg said the new attack drone plan is “a sign that Beijing may be edging closer to providing the sort of lethal aid that Western officials have warned against.” For decades, the Trumpet has highlighted Bible prophecies showing that Russia and China will become full military allies in the near future and form the largest military the world has ever seen, as explained in our free booklet Russia and China in Prophecy.
New satellite imagery published on July 2 shows that China is expanding its network of electronic spy stations on Cuba. The development worries many Western observers since the bases could give China advanced eavesdropping capabilities just 100 miles from the United States’ coast in Florida, and just 70 miles from Naval Station Guantanamo Bay.
The new imagery follows evidence last year that China and Cuba are building a joint military training base on Cuba’s northern coast, which “could provide China with a platform to potentially house troops permanently on the island and broaden its intelligence gathering, including electronic eavesdropping, against the U.S.,” the Wall Street Journal wrote.
Meanwhile, China and Russia are also strengthening their position in Venezuela and Nicaragua. Like Cuba, these nations border shipping routes that America depends on. In March 2019, the Trumpet cautioned: “If these Latin dictatorships become staging grounds for Russia and China, a coalition of nations could potentially cut off U.S. access to the Panama Canal and seal off the Straits of Florida and the Yucatán Channel,” which “could cripple the U.S. economy by restricting its access to oceanic shipping” (“Preparing to Storm America’s Castle”). As alarming as such an attack on America may sound, Bible prophecies in Deuteronomy, Ezekiel and Isaiah show that it will soon take place.
Anglo-America
The United States Supreme Court made several rulings in its latest term that handed wins to Donald Trump and conservatives (article). Yet its ruling on Murthy v. Missouri on June 26 also allowed Joe Biden and other radical liberals in the federal government to continue ongoing efforts to censor social media posts. The suit cited evidence that the U.S. government pressured social media companies to censor posts from conservatives and others, a fact confirmed by the release of the Twitter Files. However, the majority ruling in Murthy v. Missouri was that the plaintiffs lacked “standing” for bringing the suit in the first place because they were not personally injured by this activity.
This ruling allows the federal government to keep censoring social media users in the lead-up to the 2024 presidential elections. And many nongovernmental organizations are willing to help the federal government.
More than 200 organizations, researchers and journalists have called on Big Tech to “increase platform-integrity efforts to protect democracy in 2024.” On May 15, the Media Research Council revealed that at least 45 of these signatories have accepted cash from one or more organizations connected to radical liberal activist billionaire George Soros. He gave these organizations $80,757,329 between 2016 and 2022 for their help in censoring conservative talking points.
Daniel 8:12 prophesies that a host of bureaucrats, intelligence agents, media moguls, and tech entrepreneurs will cast truth to the ground in the end time. This is being fulfilled in Silicon Valley.
Meanwhile, the radical left has gone beyond allowing millions of illegal aliens in the U.S. by actively recruiting these aliens to become police officers. New legislation went into effect on June 6 allowing police departments across Washington state to hire illegal aliens as long they were 16 years old or younger when they entered the country. Washington is home to more than 14,000 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival recipients, so state lawmakers hope recruiting these recipients into local police forces will help offset staffing shortages. Since federal laws exempt active and retired police officers from state and local gun control laws when carrying off-duty and in restricted areas, any illegal alien hired by the Seattle Police Department will have more access to gun privileges than the average citizen.
Deuteronomy 28:15, 43-44 prophesy that aliens and strangers will “get up above” the citizens of end-time Israel, while the citizens themselves “come down very low.” Today, Democrat officials are seeking out foreigners who broke U.S. law to enter the nation illegally to help them enforce their will on American citizens. We also see Columbia University administrators openly mocking Jewish students for their concerns about anti-Semitism at pro-Hamas rallies while creating “safe-spaces” for every minority concerned about microaggressions.
Leftist professors hate biblical precepts that promote the rule of law; individual freedom and accountability; limited government; stable families; freedom of religion, speech and property; and other principles that trace back to the Jews and the ancient Israelites. In other words, they are trying to blot out the name of Israel (2 Kings 14:27).
