Russia and Germany have had very dangerous dealings in the past. Time and again, they have crafted military pacts before carving Europe into regions of domination. Today we see a growing cooperation between these two in the sphere of energy transmission. Does this foreshadow a 21st-century German-Soviet non-aggression pact and a future global conflict?

The proposed Baltic Sea Nord Stream gas pipeline, primarily financed by Russian state-owned gas giant Gazprom and German energy companies E.On and basf, is “an EU and a Russia project of a size that has never been completed before,” according to former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, who is now Gazprom’s Nord Stream chairman. “We’re seeing Europe and Russia working together like never before in the past,” he said (Business Week, February 8).

This massive undersea pipeline will bring Russian gas supplies to Germany before being distributed to Britain, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark and possibly other European states.

Although Britain and France have debated whether or not it is prudent to increase their dependency on Russian gas deliveries, it is the Eastern nations that most immediately need to fear Russia once the Nord Stream pipeline is complete.

In January 2006, Gazprom cut off Ukraine’s gas supply after Ukraine’s newly elected, pro-Western government balked at paying gas prices that were much greater than those paid by the previous, pro-Russian government. Georgia has also endured Russian energy punishment. Last year, relations between Russia and Georgia broke down after Georgia accused four Russian military officers of spying. The Kremlin responded with economic and transport sanctions. In December, after Gazprom threatened to completely cut off gas supplies, Georgia agreed to pay us$235 per 1,000 cubic meters, up from $110. Belarus too recently succumbed to similar energy blackmail. On January 1, Russia forced Belarus into accepting price hikes that more than doubled Belarus’s current costs. As part of the deal, Gazprom demanded Belarus sell its 50 percent of the shares in the Belarusian pipeline network, which supplies gas to Poland and Germany. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova and Armenia are other known victims of Russian energy coercion.

Yet, all these concessions were peanuts compared to what Russia could have potentially extracted from the Eastern European gas transit nations had the rest of Europe not also relied on those same pipelines for their gas.

When Russia has cut off gas to an Eastern European nation, downstream Western European nations have also been affected. When Russia shut off the Ukraine’s gas supply, for example, much of Germany’s supply was cut off too. This evoked a huge outcry in which Western European countries put massive pressure on Russia to immediately turn the gas back on. Thus, Russia wasn’t able to extort as many concessions out of the Ukraine and other Eastern nations as it would have liked to.

But once the Baltic pipeline is complete, Russia will be able to stop gas deliveries to individual Eastern European countries and only minimally affect Germany, France and the other downstream Western European states. Russia’s energy supplies will then become an even more precise and lethal weapon with which to influence Eastern European politics and limit the European Union’s eastern expansion, or possibly even try to reverse parts of it.

It is easy to see why Russia is supporting the construction of the Nord Stream pipeline, even though an overland route through Poland is estimated to be one third the cost and pose much less danger to the environment.

Poland and Sweden see the Nord Stream threat.

“We are astonished that Germany would do something which doesn’t benefit consumers and the geopolitical objective of which is to be able to cut off Belarus and Poland without cutting off Germany,” said Poland’s Defense Minister Radek Sikorski (Deutsche Welle, May 1, 2006).

“Poland has a particular sensitivity to corridors and deals above our head. That was the Locarno tradition, that was the Molotov-Ribbentrop tradition. That was the 20th century. We don’t want any repetition of that,” he said.

In Sweden, the pipeline has been dubbed “a new Russian island right next to Sweden.”

Roughly 311 miles of the pipeline would run inside the Swedish economic sea zone (the sea zone outside its territorial waters in which Sweden controls the resource rights but cannot regulate transportation or loitering above or below the ocean’s surface). “Furthermore, there are plans to erect a permanently manned service tower just northeast of the Swedish island of Gotland” (bbc, Nov. 15, 2006). “Such a construction could be used as a platform for espionage,” warned Swedish Minister of Defense Mikael Odenberg.

The question arises: Why would Germany knowingly let Russia gain so much more influence in Europe, especially Eastern Europe, when that would seemingly threaten the security of the EU? The fact is, Germany has much to gain in the deal.

Moscow and Berlin are locked in a high-stakes game of power politics. Once the Baltic pipeline comes online, Germany will also vastly increase its geopolitical muscle within Europe. Berlin may be sacrificing political influence in certain Eastern nations in order to gain more power over its Western neighbors.

The Nord Stream pipeline will give Germany the same kind of energy leverage over much of Western Europe that Russia has over many Eastern nations. Germany will control the spigot that will deliver considerable amounts of natural gas to France, Britain, the Netherlands and Belgium. That is a very powerful tool or potential weapon that could be used to bind, influence or injure nations.

In other words, it is German, not Russian, ambitions that Western European nations need to fear most.

“If everything goes according to the German plan, the energy supply of Great Britain—as of other EU states—will be under full German control in a few years,” noted German-Foreign-Policy.com analyst Horst Teubert (February 2).

Even Russian President Vladimir Putin has noted that the pipeline would, in Teubert’s words, “alter the importance of Germany in the energy economy of Western Europe.”

Germany is molding itself into the energy hub of Europe—in order to unite the fractured and disparate European Union nations under its leadership. The Nord Stream Baltic Pipeline, although an extremely strategic development for Germany, is just the latest step in its achieving this goal.

German energy firms already dominate much of Europe’s energy supply networks and utilities. German energy giant E.On, for example, already the largest private worldwide energy establishment, has just broken up Spain’s largest energy supplier, Endesa, capturing strategic units of the company in the process. The breakup of Endesa, itself a massive corporation with operations in Europe and South America, was just the latest in a string of corporate takeovers throughout Europe. E.On is now the dominant energy company on the Continent, owning operations in 13 European nations.

E.On, through its purchase of Ruhrgas in 2003, is also the largest Western shareholder in Gazprom—the largest gas supplier to Europe and the majority owner of Nord Stream. German-based rwe and basf are other corporations with major power infrastructure networks across Europe.

Germany is already the most economically and politically influential country within the European Union. Once Angela Merkel’s vision of a European Army is realized, Germany will most likely become Europe’s biggest military player too. Germany’s developing energy relationship with Russia, despite EU member state concerns, is evidence of Germany’s drive, and the extent to which it will go to further increase its power. Just how much control in Eastern Europe, if any, Germany is willing to sacrifice to Russia, in exchange for the future Nord Stream pipeline weapon will soon be seen.

Some 2,500 years ago, the Prophet Daniel described an end-time union that would fill the power void in Europe in the end time. The union would rise up and ignite World War iii; it would be a union geographically located within the region of the former Roman Empire.

The Roman Empire is represented by the legs of iron on the great image of Daniel 2. Yet the feet and toes of this image were made up of a brittle mixture of iron and clay (Daniel 2:41). The 10 toes symbolize 10 contemporaneous kings or leaders united in a massive political-military bloc—a United States of Europe—that will work together in the years ahead to resurrect the Roman Empire one final time. Half those kings will come from Western Europe, the other half from Eastern Europe. Yet, the union will also require a strong nation to hold it together for even a short time, because iron cannot mix with clay. Even so, while it lasts, this empire will have the strength of iron. Recent history and current trends confirm that strong nation to be Germany.

For more than half a century, the late Herbert W. Armstrong, founder of the Plain Truth magazine, spoke and wrote about this prophesied 10-nation combine. Concerning the coming United States of Europe, he forecast its ascent to global superpower status multiple decades ago—long before the creation of the EU of today. Read our article “Is a World Dicator About to Appear?” to appreciate the accuracy of his forecasts concerning this pivotal event.