Europe is at a crossroads.

Each week brings further news of the eurozone’s deepening economic crisis. It is not just that this risks EU economic and financial policy fragmenting along nationalist lines. This crisis raises the prospect of the fracturing of the whole process of ongoing political unification of the European continent.

For years, pundits have warned that the very rules under which the eurozone was created would prove to be its nemesis. Now, with Europe caught in the grip of its greatest financial and economic upheaval since World War ii, the predictions of the failure of the eurozone appear to numerous observers to be becoming reality.

For decades, we have forecasted that the European conglomerate would eventually fracture along political and economic fault lines, resulting in the formation of 10 separate power blocs subject to one overarching, predominant and dominant political, economic and military power (Revelation 17:12-13).

We have watched as this entity has morphed from its humble beginnings as the European Coal and Steel Community into a European Common Market, then into its post-German-reunification configuration as the European Union. We watched as the EU expanded its borders south and east following the implosion of the Soviet Union, and spread to ultimately embrace 27 separate nation-states.

We continued to watch and predict the final configuration of this European conglomerate, even as Vladimir Putin’s Russia pushed back at European hegemony and insisted the line of EU eastward expansion be blocked at the Ukrainian plain. Then we watched as the EU’s efforts to spread its tentacles to the Transcaucasus were stymied through the recent Russian invasion of Georgia and South Ossetia.

Now we watch as the fissures grow wider between the EU nations, and as its leading member nations initiate protectionist measures in efforts to fight the rising tide of recession. And as we watch, our predictions remain constant. The European Union will survive, not necessarily under that name, and certainly not in its current configuration. But it will survive. It will not only survive, but for a brief moment in time, it will thrive to the point that economically, politically and militarily, it will be the dominant global power.

This prediction flies in the face of some of the highest-profile analyses that have been issued of recent date.

Two of those predictions are from entities that demand respect. One is tasked with gleaning global intelligence on behalf of the government of the United States of America, the National Intelligence Council (nic). The other we have often quoted as one of the best sources of clear analysis of world events, the Texas-based think tank Stratfor.

NIC’s 15-Year Prediction

As we highlighted in the February edition of our magazine, the U.S. National Intelligence Council predicts that the European Union could well break up within the next 15 years.

Details within the 2008 version of the nic report, “Global Trends 2025,” adhere to a line of thought, powerful in its criticism of EU economic policy, that was initially raised in the 2020 version which declared, “The current EU welfare state is unsustainable and the lack of any economic revitalization could lead to the splintering or, at worst, disintegration of the EU, undermining its ambitions to play a heavyweight international role.”

Given the facts as they stand, the former statement we may agree with at least to a fair extent. It is the inference that the possible fracturing of the EU will undermine its drive for a globalist role that we strongly take exception to. For reasons that we have consistently pointed out through the 20-year life of the Trumpet magazine, it is the very threat of EU disintegration that will create the crisis that will drive its leading member nation to initiate a powerful rescue package that will end with all EU nations bowing to its will.

The nic report points to Germany’s restrictive labor laws as dragging down the EU’s economic growth rate. It says that reforms to Germany’s, and to a lesser extent France and Italy’s, labor laws are the key to whether or not the European Union can break through its endemic “slow-growth pattern.”

The report adds: “Either European countries adapt their workforces, reform their social welfare, education and tax systems, and accommodate growing immigrant populations [chiefly from Muslim countries] or they face a period of protracted economic stasis.”

The potentialities for such a scenario to become a reality in Europe are obvious to any clear-minded observer. However, what is not obvious to most analysts who contribute to a sweeping report on the future, such as that which the nic has attempted in predicting the geopolitical structure over the next 15 years, is the reality of an overarching, supreme spiritual Power who operates universally to influence global events—sometimes to effect an outcome to which most analysts are completely oblivious.

The most astute of statesmen have, over the years, acknowledged that reality, while still having great difficulty in seeing its application to events as they play out. Winston Churchill is a case in point. It was he who, in his speech before the U.S. Congress on Dec. 26, 1941, implicitly acknowledged that Power’s influence on human affairs, while also acknowledging that it was not given to politicians to foresee the future: “If you will allow me to use other language, I will say that he must indeed have a blind soul who cannot see that some great purpose and design is being worked out here below of which we have the honor to be the faithful servants. It is not given to us to peer into the mysteries of the future.”

Our own forecasts of world events are based on the revelation of the meaning of the prophecies that are embedded in that “great purpose and design” as it is clearly expounded in your Bible.

Predicting 100 Years Ahead

Dr. George Friedman, ceo of Stratfor, ventures much further into the future than does the nic in its efforts at prediction. In his recently released book The Next 100 Years, Dr. Friedman predicts a far different future for Europe than some of his analysts have mulled over in the past.

Dr. Friedman sets the scene for the principal thesis of his book by referring to the fact that “For the past 500 years, Europe was the center of the international system, its empires creating a single global system for the first time in human history. The main highway to Europe was the North Atlantic. Whoever controlled the North Atlantic controlled access to Europe—and Europe’s access to the world. The basic geography of global politics was locked into place.”

Noting the progressive shift from the emphasis on trade across the Atlantic to an equal emphasis from the 1980s on trade across both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, Friedman posits that this places the United States in the preeminent geopolitical position due to its post-World War ii dominant maritime position across both oceans. He concludes from these facts that “North America has replaced Europe as the center of gravity in the world, and whoever dominates North America is virtually assured of being the dominant global power.”

This logic is hard to fault, assuming the U.S. retains its power to energize and effectively deploy defensive mechanisms to retain that dominance, and, despite overwhelming anti-American global opinion, has the political will to use that power to effectively restrain any competing power that seeks to undermine such dominance.

Dr. Friedman’s thesis is based on the logic of that eminent American historian of sea power, Adm. Alfred Thayer Mahan. He noted that the whole Western Hemisphere is but an island amid the oceans. Thus, according to Mahan, a key to the predominant status of the West has been its control of the world’s seaways.

Alfred Mahan’s strategic concepts are often matched with those of the renowned British geographer Sir Halford Mackinder, who emphasized that he who controlled what he termed the “central Eurasian landmass”—or “the world island”—may well control the world. Historically, this was both Hitler’s and Stalin’s goal.

But it is Mahan in particular to whom Dr. Friedman looks in terms of his prediction that North America, specifically the United States, rather than Europe, will dominate global affairs over the next 100 years.

We beg to differ.

Prophetic Reality

Alfred Mahan’s theory of the importance of sea power as a protector of transoceanic trade is a clear fact of geopolitics. He pointed to the phenomenon of Great Britain ruling the waves as being the reason for the greatness of the British Empire in the 19th century. But what neither Mackinder nor Mahan, and with respect, Dr. Friedman, can pinpoint is the reason why Britain rose to such power and prominence virtually overnight! That is because it takes an understanding of Bible prophecy to unlock the reason.

That overwhelming dominance of the world’s sea-lanes in the 19th century by the British, and the subsequent predominance of America in the same sense during the 20th century, were prophesied by Almighty God. In fact, prophesied some 3,500 years before it suddenly became a reality!

It was part of a promise of world greatness given by God to the patriarch Abraham due to his unfailing obedience to his God (Genesis 22:17). It had little to do with any deliberate strategy of the British or the Americans per se.

But even more crucial to our times is the prophecy that unless the progeny of Abraham, the Israelites—in reality the predominantly Anglo-Saxon and Judaic nations of today (see our book The United States and Britain in Prophecy)—subjected themselves to His law, God would break the pride of their power and they would lose the economic, political and military dominance over much of the globe that they had previously enjoyed (Leviticus 26:19).

Bible prophecy reveals the rise and the fall of nations and whole empires millennia in advance of the fact!

It is to the reality of the revelation of Bible prophecy that the very best of this world’s strategic thinkers are profoundly blind (John 12:40). It is within the context of this overarching truth that we must take issue with the assertion that the U.S. will be the most dominant power on the globe for the next 100 years. On the unerring authority of the divinely inspired prophecies documented in your Bible, we unhesitatingly continue to declare that neither the assertions of the nic nor the predictions of Dr. Friedman, documented above, are a true reflection of the world events you see unfolding before your eyes today.

In fact, the very opposite is true!

The European Union—the very power that the nic speculates may see its ambitions to play a heavyweight international role undermined by internal divisions—will in fact witness its leading architects, Germany and the Vatican, use those very divisions as a catalyst for creating unity of spirit and political will within Europe. So declare the prophecies of your Bible (see our booklet Germany and the Holy Roman Empire).

The very entity that Dr. Friedman believes “has replaced Europe as the center of gravity in the world,” North America, is in fact in the very near future to be replaced itself, suddenly, dramatically and powerfully, by Europe! So say the prophecies of your Bible (read our booklet The Rising Beast).

Dr. Friedman accurately states the historical fact that “Most of the conflicts in the first half of the 20th century were about Germany’s status in Europe.” Bible prophecy reveals that the conflicts of the early 21st century will inevitably also be about Germany’s status not only in Europe, but in the whole world! (read our booklet Nahum: An End-Time Prophecy for Germany).

At this point of considerable crisis around the globe, of deepening crisis in Europe—in particular within both the eurozone and the predominantly Roman Catholic Eastern European member nations of the EU—which nation is feeling the pressure greatest? It is Germany! Any student of the German psyche knows that the typical German cannot tolerate disorder. It is a mind that amid chaos simply comes alive with an innate drive to pose, and to impose, its very own solution on the problem! In such a climate demagogues arise, and we have history to prove the fatal result!

In keeping with its recurring history, Germany will end up thriving amid this chaos and emerge dominating not only Europe, but the whole global economic, trading and political system for a very brief period of this world’s unfolding history in the not-too-distant future!

Sounds fantastic?

Well, it certainly sounded fantastic to those who heard Herbert Armstrong declare, based on “the more sure word of prophecy” (2 Peter 1:19), that this was to be Europe’s future when the continent lay supine as a fractured carcass following the greatest war in humanity’s history, and Germany lay beaten in its own ashes, almost 65 years ago!

But Herbert Armstrong’s prophecies of these events are a matter of historic record!

And whether or not you believe those prophecies for today and the very near future is of no real consequence in the whole scheme of things. For regardless of your acceptance or otherwise of the unerring prophecies of Almighty God, the undeniable facts are that they never fail!

The very best of human minds may not see it. But the one who created those minds declares “the end from the beginning and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure” (Isaiah 46:10).

Mark these words. Watch Europe, watch the EU and, most especially this year, watch Germany and the Vatican. These are the entities that, despite all human predictions to the contrary, will thrive on Europe’s moment of deep crisis, and pose the economic, political, military and spiritual solutions to its present dilemma.

That will be a solution that defies all human predictions. It will in fact be one of the most powerful of proofs of the inerrancy of Bible prophecy. It will be a solution that will most powerfully vindicate the one who prophesied it for almost his entire ministry of close to 60 years, Herbert W. Armstrong! And it will be a solution that underwrites the very constancy of the message of the Trumpet for the past almost 20 years of its history.

Europe will unite under the dominance of Berlin politically, economically and militarily, and under Rome spiritually. That is our message to all who seek to predict the future without a clear understanding of the revelation of the prophecies of God for these times! That united European power will soon powerfully put upstart Iran in its place, and it will overtake Britain and North America with a swiftness that will take your breath away, believe it or not!

As Dr. Friedman most correctly declares, world events run counter to common sense. In truth, they make sense alone to those whose minds are open to accept the clear, the plain and the simple truth: that there is an all-powerful God who declares “the end from the beginning and from ancient times the things that are not yet done.” He is the God, despite all human reasoning to the contrary, and despite the rejection of His divinely inspired Word by the majority of mankind, whose “counsel shall stand”!

Read our booklet Who or What Is the Prophetic Beast? with a completely open mind and verify the facts of history and current events, in the light of Bible prophecy, for yourself! It should change your whole perspective and outlook on the world and give depth of meaning to your life, showing just where you fit into the equation of the unfolding plan of Almighty God for the whole of humankind!