Germany’s Grand Strategy
Nations have personalities. It’s a fact clearly documented by history, but which few people talk about. Each nation has its own innate strengths, talents and peculiar abilities—each has its own weaknesses. Given a nation’s historic tendency to react in a given way under certain stimuli, one can deduce a definite habit pattern that will be repeated should similar circumstances recur.
A number of those who have been keen observers of the national traits of the German peoples and who deeply understand both the character and the history of the nation are increasingly concerned about Germany’s current intentions.
The facts are worth considering. In the 60 years since World War ii, Germany has gone from global pariah to being the leading economic, financial, political, judicial, bureaucratic and military power in Europe—the most dominant nation by far within the European Union. The United States, Britain and Russia, in addition to all EU member nations, now do more than just take notice of Germany’s diplomatic moves—they even seek out its government’s advice.
The fact is, true to their nation’s character and history, certain influential German minds are working at a grand strategy to consolidate their present dominance in Europe as a platform for global hegemony.
The latest indications of this truth appeared in April, when nato held what
may have been its most important summit since the end of the Cold War. Consider two story lines that emerged.
Two Story Lines
First, France and Britain, aware of Germany’s efforts to gain greater control over nato, are positioning themselves as a buffer against German stridency. Witness British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s call in late March for an entente formidable with France, and France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy’s overt declaration, “I have never reduced France’s European policies simply
to our relations with the Germans. … I have never ceased wanting to work in close cooperation with London.” It is interesting that this new love affair between France and Britain, both nuclear-armed powers, comes as voices in Germany are seeking a nuclear first-strike capability for nato.
Also significant is that Russia and the EU—Germany in particular—stepped up pressure on both sides of the Kosovo issue in the run-up to the nato summit. Germany was adamant about having recognized Kosovo’s independence in preparation to drawing it into EU membership; Russia refused to budge on the opposite side of the argument. It now seems a trade-off, if not yet fully implemented, is well advanced: Russia will sacrifice influence in Kosovo and Serbia for the EU (significantly Germany) refusing to support Ukraine’s membership in nato. The Trumpet has maintained for some time that the continental border between the eastward-expanding EU and a resurgent Russia would in all likelihood be drawn at Ukraine. The signs are that an agreement on the EU-Russian border has implicitly been reached.
In both of these story lines, Germany is in the box seat.
France’s late run for an alliance with Britain to offset German belligerence in EU military affairs is bound to be too little too late. Germany is on a roll; the Franco-British alliance is likely only a slight distraction to the pursuit of Germany’s grand imperial strategy for the expansion of EU influence in matters of global security and defense.
The die was cast back in the early 1990s on Germany’s role as the dominant player politically and militarily on the European continent. The issue then, as it was in the run-up to the 2008 nato summit, surrounded a trade-off over the Balkans.
A Profound Warning
Edward Spalton, in a letter to the Trumpet, explains this in rather succinct terms: “The remarkable thing was that all the EU countries, having been firmly opposed to recognizing Slovenia and Croatia, suddenly did an ‘about face’ and all broke their commitments under the Helsinki Accords by doing so. This arose from Britain’s entrapment (the French call it engreinage) in the mechanism of EU treaties.
“The Maastricht Treaty (which brought the euro currency into being) was being negotiated at the time and Britain was committed ‘in principle’ to joining it by the fine print of the earlier Single European Act (1986). John Major, the Conservative prime minister, knew he could never sell the euro
either to his party or to the country and needed an opt-out. Diplomatic recognition of the seceding Yugoslav states was Germany’s price. The German foreign minister remarked, ‘By this, Germany has regained diplomatically everything lost in Eastern Europe as the result of two world wars.’ I have had the facts of this trade-off confirmed by two senior British parliamentarians (one of former cabinet rank) and by Dr. Miroslav Polreich, who was Czechoslovakian ambassador to the osce in Vienna at the time”
(emphasis mine throughout). Dr. Polreich also verified this remarkable trade-off in a 1999 interview with our staff.
“With regard to Germany’s predominance in Eastern Europe, albeit under an
EU cloak,” Spalton continued, “one German minister made a thinly veiled threat in 1994 on the anniversary of the Nazi attack on Poland: ‘If integration (i.e. EU expansion) in Eastern Europe were not to proceed, a future German government might be called upon or compelled by its own security considerations to solve the problems of the area on its own and in the traditional manner.’”
This concerned Englishman then added a profound warning to the American
peoples in respect of the storm brewing over the Atlantic: “America, beware the EU! Britain is trapped in it, as all the main parties agree on our membership in spite of widespread public opposition. Uncle Sam spent a great deal of money through the cia in support of the European movement
to get us in. It did both the U.S. and Britain a bad turn.”
Consider these facts in light of what appears to be this latest trade-off between Germany and Russia—yielding up the final bits of the Balkans (Serbia-Montenegro and Kosovo) to EU control in exchange for the drawing of a firm line between the EU’s eastward expansion and Russian western influence.
If one stands back to look at the big picture that has emerged since the unification of Germany in 1990, the grand strategy can be observed. It’s a strategy that is designed to plant German influence on the entire European continent, clear across Central Asia into Afghanistan and on to Western China so as to stem any prospect of China’s penetration into Europe.
This strategy contains within it intentions to extend Germany’s southern reach—under what Edward Spalton terms the EU umbrella—across the Mediterranean into deepest Africa and, in particular, then into the Arabian Sea to become protector of the Middle East oil basin, ultimately crowning
this whole grand strategy by retaking Jerusalem in the name of Rome! (Daniel 8:9).
Sound fantastic? A more realistic view of Germany’s grand strategy could not be imagined, if you truly understand the application of Bible prophecies to the events currently unfolding in this world.
The Strategy Unfolds
In just 18 short years since East and West Germany came together, Germany has skyrocketed from being constrained for the previous 45 years to the defense of its borders within the nato alliance, to becoming one of the strongest naval powers within the alliance. It has mounted bombing
runs against Serbia in the Balkan wars (which it instigated) and has recently deployed a combat force in Afghanistan.
The German navy created history in April by holding the first-ever joint naval exercises between Germany and India. This is Germany’s signal to China of its intention to resist any westward incursion by that rapidly rising East Asian nation. Germany is also sharing military technology with India, and with other nations.
These are but the highlights within a range of future initiatives planned by Germany to extend the international reach and prestige of its military power.
Key to Germany’s success in achieving the goal of global dominance is careful diplomacy. The EU and nato have both proven to be ideal institutions under which Germany has been free to pursue its goals without drawing undue attention to the repetition of history that is in play.
Germany has a great bargaining chip up its sleeve for gaining more clout within nato: Afghanistan. Berlin needs a continuing presence in Afghanistan in order to link via Central Asia to Sinkiang and Tibet, key components within its East Asia strategy. Nato desperately needs more military personnel in order to stem the insurgency in Afghanistan. Germany has indicated its willingness to assist only if given more control over military
policy in Afghanistan. Germany’s Defense Ministry knows that if it holds out
long enough, chances are the U.S. will capitulate and yield up a level of control to Germany, under the nato umbrella. Then Germany will rise to the occasion with a greater troop commitment. With that assignment will come the enhanced prestige and influence, politically and militarily, Germany will gain from such a move.
2009—A New Strategic Concept?
In 2009, a number of events coalesce in Europe.
The European Constitution (under its veiled titles of EU Reform Treaty, or the Lisbon Treaty) is due to be ratified by all EU member nations by the end of this year so as to come into force in 2009. If the EU can pull this off, it will finally have a single representative president and a single representative foreign minister.
The November 2008 U.S. presidential election will bring a new administration to the White House. The change in foreign policy could have huge impact on nato’s efforts to find its place in the global defense and security arena from 2009 on. Germany’s federal election is slated for autumn 2009. State elections have shown a definite swing away from support of the Merkel coalition. A change in the chancellorship of Germany could change
European politics. Merkel has pursued a policy of friendship with the U.S. and of giving the cold shoulder to Russia, quite the opposite to that of her predecessor, Gerhard Schröder. With the U.S. descending rapidly from superpower status in the eyes of Europeans, with a more aggressive Russia to contend with and Vladimir Putin firmly ensconced at the top in Russia’s government, Germany could return to a less friendly relationship with America and a more conciliatory relationship with its eastern neighbor. Powerful German politicians wait in the wings for their moment, not the least of them being Vice Chancellor Frank Walter Steinmeier.
President Nicolas Sarkozy has signaled that France may seek full membership of nato in 2009. It would certainly do so if it perceived a risk of Germany strengthening its voice within nato, so as to act as a counterfoil
to German military ambitions.
According to nato Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, the 2009 nato summit will herald the consolidation of nato reform under a new Strategic Concept. Before the 2008 summit he declared, “The burdens on nato are greater today than ever before, and this makes it ever more urgent that we have a clear strategic vision, clear priorities and above all a clear sense
of the resources that we need to be successful. In other words, we need to answer the question: What kind of nato do we want for the years to come?” That question has been asked of nato since the end of the Cold War 18 years ago. Nato’s 60th anniversary, to be celebrated next year, may well be the occasion for the unveiling of a whole new strategic vision for nato that will powerfully work to Germany’s advantage.
NATO and the EU
It seems certain that nato will continue to drift away from being influenced by U.S. foreign policy and increasingly become a tool for the consolidation of European power as an offset to a reviving imperialist Russia, and as a counterweight to the expansion of both Islamic influence and the rise of greater Asia. This is the direction nato’s secretary general seeks to take.
A key component of Scheffer’s speech was his declaration that “nato’s mission of consolidating Europe will continue. … Retaining this vocation to enlarge the European democratic space—and acting upon it—will remain a crucial part of nato’s raison d’être.”
Scheffer strengthened this vision by underlining his conviction that “taking nato reform seriously means also to look for more synergies with the European Union. I would like to see much more pooling of our capabilities, especially in areas such as vital enablers, transport and helicopters, or in research and development, or in harmonizing our force structures and training methods. After all we only have one common set of national defense
budgets and national military forces. So it is absolutely critical that all of the capabilities that we are able to generate from this pool of forces are equally available to both nato and the EU.”
There’s no mention of the U.S. in this grand vision for nato’s future. In fact, Scheffer went so far as to declare his hope that European leaders would “make clear to our publics nato’s tremendous potential to shape the strategic environment in ways that the founders of this alliance never dared to dream of.” How true that is! The founders of the nato alliance had one great goal in mind: to stem the eastward expansion of Soviet communism into Europe. That was the raison d’être of nato as conceived, developed and promulgated by its founders. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990, nato’s original reason for being became but part of Cold War history.
What nato’s secretary general envisions is indeed something that nato’s founders “never dared dream of”—that nato could become a tool to aid the rise, the expansion and the consolidation of the military power of a united Europe—a European superpower—under the leadership of the nation that plunged the European continent into war in 1871, 1914 and 1939.
For a deeper study of the nation of Germany in relation to unfolding Bible prophecy, and for an exposé of the peaceful future that Germany and the whole world will eventually enjoy when all global conflicts cease, request a free copy of our booklets Nahum—An End-Time Prophecy for Germany and Germany and the Holy Roman Empire.
