At the height of the Cold War, the United States had roughly 7,000 nuclear warheads stationed in Europe. Today, America has about 200 B61 nuclear gravity bombs under the auspices of nato on the Continent.

These bombs may soon be up for grabs.

When the Cold War ended, the security equation dictating Europe’s defense changed, and America slashed the number of nukes it had stockpiled there. With Russia no longer perceived as a nuclear threat, it wasn’t long before some began calling on Washington to remove its few remaining nukes. The calls intensified with time. But officials in Washington and nato were concerned about the message a comprehensive nuclear drawdown would send to Russia (as well as those formerly under the Kremlin’s boot heel). So they ignored the requests and preserved the status quo.

Until now.

“In recent weeks it has become clear that the status quo is no longer an option,” Anne Penketh wrote in the Guardian Tuesday. The latest wave of pressure began last fall, when German and Dutch politicians demanded that America remove its nukes. It crested last week, when four senior Belgian politicians demanded that Washington remove its 20 or so B61s from their nation’s soil.

And it seems the pressure on the White House will only intensify. Citing remarks from senior Belgian leaders, Agence France Presse reported last Friday that an impending joint proposal from five nato members will demand “that nuclear arms on European soil belonging to other nato member states are removed.” According to a spokesman for Belgium’s prime minister, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Norway will submit a petition “in the coming weeks” for more than 200 American warheads to be removed from Europe, including Turkey.

We need to keep an eye on these nuclear weapons.

In 1965, German politician Franz Josef Strauss wrote a visionary book in which he outlined his ambition for the creation of a united and independent German-led European superstate. Strauss envisioned this federalized European entity as much more than a globally dominant political and economic union. He believed it must possess military features that would forge it as an international force on par militarily with the United States.

To Strauss, this German-led European combine would inevitably have to go nuclear.

How? On page 52 of The Grand Design, Strauss wrote, “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 material” (emphasis mine throughout).

After 45 years, that day may be about to dawn. Strauss’s vision of an independent European military—including a “European nuclear force” aided in its creation by the United States—could soon be reality!

Any analysis of the decision to remove American nukes from Europe must factor in the broader debate currently underway between Europe and America over the future of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Put simply, nato is experiencing a major identity crisis. Its original mandate is redundant and it has grown so large it’s become unwieldy and cumbersome, a tangled mess of bureaucracy and conflicting ideologies and priorities. In spite of these maladies, demand for nato’s services is strong, and the alliance finds itself on the front lines of all sorts of major projects, including the ongoing war in Afghanistan.

Hence the question being hotly debated by American and European leaders: What exactly is the role—or what officials have termed the new “strategic concept”—of nato?

The answer to this pivotal question stands to impact us all. And we’re already getting a glimpse of what it will be. Europe is weighing heavily into the debate over nato’s future. European countries are not the dispirited, easily manipulated political and military dwarfs they were when nato coalesced as a distinctly American creation in 1949. Moreover, the European Union today is a legitimate superstate, replete with its own developing security apparatus, foreign-policy objectives and military ambitions—and is advancing its own distinct and far-reaching vision for the future of nato.

In fact, 2010, as Trumpet columnist Ron Fraser recently explained, could be the year that nato transforms into a distinctly European instrument!

Watching the creeping Europeanization of nato, one wonders whether this process might include the Europeanization of America’s nuclear bombs by Germany. Even now, those warheads exist under nato guidelines. It doesn’t take much imagination to see nato’s new strategic concept including strictures that could place America’s nuclear bombs in the hands of the EU—which from its inception has been a German creation.

Of course, we don’t know for certain what will happen to these weapons. But conditions are crystallizing to where we could find out this year.

In an address to world leaders at the Global Zero conference earlier this month, U.S. President Barack Obama assured his audience that America’s forthcoming “Nuclear Posture Review [npr] will reduce the role and number of nuclear weapons in our national security strategy.”According to Hans M. Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists, “the European initiative would help the Obama administration justify a decision to withdraw the weapons from Europe by demonstrating that key nato allies no longer see a need for the deployment.”

The problem is, any declaration by the White House that it plans to remove its nukes from Europe would preempt and potentially interrupt the debate over nato’s new strategic concept. But Mr. Obama is not without options, as Mr. Kristensen notes: “An alternative could be that the npr concludes that the U.S. sees no need for the continued deployment of nuclear weapons in Europe but leaves it up tonato‘s new strategic concept to make the formal decision.”

In other words, President Obama could leave it up to nato—which is currently being cannibalized by European ambition—to determine what to do with America’s nuclear warheads!

Looking only at the initiative to remove American warheads from the Continent, it appears Europe would choose to banish all American bombs from its midst. But it’s not that simple. This initiative is being driven by liberal-socialist European politicians and media pundits. So far, Europe’s Catholic, conservative pro-military politicians have barely weighed in on this issue. This is the crop of leaders we must be watching—particularly as the ongoing economic calamity intensifies the craving for closer political, economic and military union in Europe.

The debate over the future of nato will continue throughout 2010. As it does, expect Europe’s voice and role in nato to get stronger. Pay special attention to German politician Baron Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg. Guttenberg recently lashed out at nato, calling it an inept organization in need of a radical overhaul. Germany’s defense minister believes, as do more than a few European politicians these days, that Europe needs a stronger military, one closely aligned with and heavily influencing nato.

As Europe cannibalizes nato, don’t be surprised if it cannibalizes America’s nuclear weapons on the Continent!

If this occurs, the most pressing question will be: What will this newly dominant European military power do with these nuclear warheads?

The late Herbert Armstrong answered that question in the April 1980 issue of the Plain Truth. “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 usa? 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!”

To most people in 1980, that forecast probably sounded absolutely ridiculous—as did Franz Josef Strauss’s “grand design” for a united European constellation in which Germany shone as the leading and brightest star. But today each of these forecasts seem much less extreme and far more sobering. And if you think that’s sobering, consider how far advanced each of these trends could be this time next year, considering the rate at which world events are unfolding.