Anti-American sentiment is rising in Europe. After United States national security officials accidentally included American journalist Jeffrey Goldberg in a Signal group chat about upcoming military strikes in Yemen, Goldberg chose to publish the texts in a March 24 article for the Atlantic. This article provided Europeans with an unfiltered view of the Trump administration’s disdain for their leaders and added impetus to Europe’s remilitarization efforts.

The group chat was like a virtual war room for Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. It was where Vance gave Hegseth his go-ahead for bombing Houthi targets in Yemen on March 15, lamenting, “I just hate bailing out Europe again.”

Hegseth sympathized with the vice president, saying, “I fully share your loathing of European freeloading. It’s pathetic. But Mike is correct, we are the only ones on the planet (on our side of the ledger) who can do this.”

About two hours after these texts were sent, bombs started falling on the Houthis—an Iran-backed terrorist organization whose motto is “God is great, death to America, death to Israel, curse on the Jews, victory to Islam.” The Trump administration effectively neutralized the threat they set out to neutralize. Yet Goldberg’s article let the world know that America’s vice president views the Middle East as Europe’s problem and resents having to defend this region.

Europe is reacting.

Germany’s most read newspaper, Bild, summarized the scandal this way: “Aside from the laxity with which the world’s most powerful politicians share top secret military strikes in an unsecured chat group, the unfriendly words toward Europe from the Americans are further proof that the U.S. no longer considers us a vital ally.”

L’Express wrote, “Top-secret Plans Leaked—What We Know About the Trump Administration’s Big Blunder,” and Fatto Quotidiano’s top story was “Parasitic, Mean and an Object of Hate—Vance and Hegseth Reveal What Trump’s U.S. Thinks of Its NATO Allies.” The sentiment across the Continent is “Can Europe rely on America?”

After World War ii, the Allied powers deliberately demilitarized Germany. The U.S. in particular promised to defend Europe from the Soviet Union so that Europe would never again have the power to start another world war. Yet 80 years later, American defense officials are tired of defending Europe. They want the European Union to stop freeloading and start defending strategic waterways like the Bab el-Mandeb on its own. The Signal group chat leak highlights this truth. And European leaders are indeed working to develop their own militaries independent of the U.S.

Just three days after the group chat leak, the Bundestag approved a major amendment to the German constitution that allows the government to go into debt to build up its military. Friedrich Merz, soon to be Germany’s chancellor, wants to start talks with Britain and France about a European nuclear weapons sharing program. These moves could transform Europe into a nuclear-armed, military superpower that would no longer be “freeloading” off the U.S. Armed Forces.

But will this development—a new Europe with powerful conventional forces and nuclear strike capability—be good for the U.S.?

The late Dr. Franz Josef Strauss, longtime premier of the German state of Bavaria and influential Christian Social Union politician, advocated for a European nuclear arsenal decades ago.

“Europe ought to have concentrated all its efforts on developing the defense of its territory on an independent basis,” he wrote in his 1965 book, The Grand Design. “I can well see the day in which America, given the creation of a European nuclear force in which the United States is not itself a participant, would be entirely willing to cooperate with assistance in research and with deliveries of materials. At least such a prospect is more likely than that Washington would find itself willing to give up the American right to veto in an Atlantic nuclear force and thereby risk having this force used against the wishes of the United States.”

Strauss was never able to convince Europe to develop such an independent nuclear umbrella during the Cold War because Germany wanted to stay on America’s good side. But now, in an ironic turn of events, it is actually the United States pushing Germany to become the leader of an independent nuclear-armed superpower capable of dealing with Iran on its own. The Trump administration is no longer interested in bailing Europe out of trouble in the Middle East.

The world has entered a dangerous new nuclear age. The global balance of power is teetering as Europe pulls further away from the U.S. and other nations rethink their alliances. Anyone who knows a little history should be able to see that these developments are pushing the world toward nuclear war. There was a reason America agreed to defend Germany after World War ii. Germany needed protecting, but American leaders did not want Germany to protect itself because doing so would mandate that Germany develop a large military it could use to start another world war.

In the April 1980 Plain Truth, Herbert W. Armstrong forecast exactly such an eventuality. “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!” he wrote. “And so they will no longer have to give in meekly to Russia! And who will they blame for their humiliation and their necessity now to have a united Europe, with a united government, a common currency, and a common military force as great or greater than either the USSR or the U.S.A.? They will blame the United States! 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!”

As shocking as this scenario sounds, it is prophesied in your Bible. Ezekiel 23 tells of a time when the end-time nations of Israel (America and Britain) will work together with Assyria (Germany) as lovers. This relationship is prophesied to be short-lived, however, before God raises up the Assyrians against His people in punishment. Prophecies such as Isaiah 10:5-6 speak of Germany being used as the rod of God’s anger against America and Britain. Other passages, such as Matthew 24:21-22, indicate that this punishment will come in the form of nuclear blitzkrieg. Vice President Vance’s text about bailing out freeloaders exposes the fact that an Atlantic rift is developing that will ultimately end in war.

To learn more, request a free copy of our booklet Nahum—An End-Time Prophecy for Germany.