To understand Germany, one has to take the long view. That means the realistic observer needs to understand the ethnic origins of the German peoples and their innate national tendencies over thousands of years of history. More importantly, one needs to understand the agenda held by German elites since Bismarck united the German peoples, the temporary successes gained by those elites during the 19th and 20th centuries, their major setbacks in two world wars and their successful revival of that same agenda in the postwar years to enable Germany to dominate Europe, yet once again, in this early 21st century.

When studying Germany, we would do well to understand that, by the very nature of the beast, Germany is seldom, in reality, as it appears on the surface. Seldom is it at heart as it is depicted in its main organs of mass communication, even by many of its closest observers and often not even by the opinions expressed by the average man in the street. This reflects the very complexity and the innate unpredictability of the German nature. It is this unpredictable nature that is the reason for the dichotomy between the pride expressed by the average German in the conduct of Germany’s troops in foreign theaters while at the same time decrying their need to be on active service.

Some of the most astute observers and commentators on Germany are clear-thinking German analysts who see and admit to this character trait of their own people, the German folk. We have often quoted them.

From time to time we are accused by some who do not know us as being possessed of a phobia against Germany. Anyone who takes the time to study our archive will clearly see this is not the case. When it comes to analyzing international relations we are simply realists who operate within a perspective of the prophetic vision that foretells the outcome of current world events in relation to both the history and the current trends within and between nations. We have an innate love for all peoples, and our desire is that all come to appreciate and to fulfill their incredible, God-ordained human potential (read our book The Incredible Human Potential).

Possessing this approach allows us to realistically portray national differences and tendencies, unapologetically, with absolutely no deference to the falsity of woolly-headed political correctness.

Our message simply flies in the face of our gainsayers.

As a nation, it is the state that a united Germany has always put first in defending its national interest, and that state (when unfettered by any need to be seen as a classic democracy—an impossibility for Germany over the long haul) is, at its very heart and core, militaristic.

Harking back to their ancient Assyrian origins, the Germans, whenever united, have always been a warrior people at heart. By the same token, Germans have always, when united, religiously followed their political leader. When they have a warm and cuddly leader, they become warm and cuddly. Let a charismatic military leader rise to the fore, as has happened thrice in recent German history, and they rise to his demands as one man.

Germany has had a leader in the image of a warm and cuddly mother figure for the past five years. That leadership appears to have served the nation well in the “good” times up to the time crisis struck in September 2008. Ever since, an increasing discomfort has spread throughout the German community as the global economic crisis has bitten deep into Europe. Now that crisis has Germany in the box seat determining the fate of one of its fellow European Union member nations, Greece. Not a very comfortable position—hardly warm and cuddly!

Germans are becoming uncomfortable. The matronly Chancellor Angela Merkel is proving not to be up to the demands of Europe’s and the world’s current crises. The very youth wing of Chancellor Merkel’s own party, the Christian Democratic Union, has voted that her defense minister, a member of cdu sister party the Bavarian Christian Social Union, would make a better chancellor in this time of crisis.

Since the time that Angela Merkel invited him into her government in March 2009, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg has had the spotlight shining brightly on his political performance. Most especially has this been the case since crisis struck the portfolio that he accepted following Germany’s 2009 federal election—that of minister of defense.

Just one year after the global economic crisis hit Germany, the nation entered a defense and security crisis, in September 2009, courtesy of the bombing of Afghans in Kunduz at the direction of a Bundeswehr colonel. This meant that Guttenberg inherited the handling of the media-managed public outcry that followed the bombing from the very moment he took over the defense portfolio. His political enemies jumped right on the bandwagon of media speculation surrounding the Kunduz bombing, even calling for Guttenberg’s resignation before he had found his feet in his new role.

A lesser man may have caved in under the media barrage and political sniping. Yet, Guttenberg has tenaciously stayed the course and continues to steadily gain ground against his political enemies. He has, now on more than one occasion, broken the silence of his predecessors by clearly stating that Germany is at war in a foreign country, something that no German politician has dared utter since the nation’s defeat by the Allies in 1944.

Guttenberg is clearly turning the war in Afghanistan to his advantage. His stated agenda is to revamp and upgrade Germany’s defense forces. He has key industrialists strongly behind a move to consolidate the entire defense industries of the European Union into manufacturing standardized equipment reflecting the very latest in military technology. He has courted nato chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen in an effort to merge the EU’s defense and security organization with that of nato, particularly timely as nato develops its new strategic concept. The intent is to eliminate duplication of effort and enable a unity of command between the two. In reality, the motive is to eventually sever nato from U.S. jurisdiction and have it absorbed into the European defense force.

Guttenberg has reduced the duration of service for conscripts in the Germany military from nine months to six to allow a faster throughput of a trained military reserve. At the same time, he is increasing the bi-annual intake of conscripts from 40,000 to 60,000. Those who assess Germany’s military strength at its present level of 253,000 uniformed personnel forget the hundreds of thousands of potential grunts that possess military training gained by conscription who, while having returned to civilian life following national service, remain available for call-up at a moment’s notice.

Given Germany’s military history, the defense minister’s initiatives are not really of the warm and cuddly variety. They reflect a mentality that sees Germany in the early stages of beefing up its security and defense organization to take on a more prominent international military role. That’s where Afghanistan enters the equation.

Over the past 10 years, Germany has quietly, yet rather dramatically, arisen from a non-combatant nation to the point where it has deployed the Bundeswehr over a total of 12 foreign theaters in that brief decade. It has managed this under the mask of reluctance to engage in combat. This has created the global view that Germany is an extremely tentative nation militarily. It is exactly this psychology that the elites who have perpetuated the dream of revived German imperialism have sought to enact. With the German press and German liberals in the palm of their hand, German elites have scored remarkable success in fooling public opinion into thinking that the German Proteus has changed its innate militaristic tendencies and become the very model of a democratic state. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Currently, the Bundeswehr’s most significant military deployment is its ground combat force engaged in the war in Afghanistan. Though all three arms of the Bundeswehr have roles to play outside of Germany’s national borders, it is the force in Afghanistan that has borne the brunt of losses in combat. The Kunduz affair, a further recent attack by a Bundeswehr force on the Taliban reportedly involving civilian casualties, plus two recent Taliban attacks that have resulted in the loss of Bundeswehr troops in Afghanistan, have all combined to cast Germany’s involvement in that theater under more intense political, media and public scrutiny.

Though these latest casualties of the war have lead to a further cry for a German withdrawal from Afghanistan, there are three prime reasons why this will not happen.

Firstly, it serves Guttenberg’s agenda admirably to retain, and even increase, Germany’s involvement in the Afghan war. What Guttenberg possesses, which Germany’s current chancellor lacks, is a political vision of imperial breadth. Guttenberg is educated in the same vision that German elites have shared since the time of that old Iron Chancellor Bismark. It is a vision he shares with Bavarian politician Edmund Stoiber, who was personally mentored by that grand old Bavarian statesman Franz Josef Strauss. There can be little doubt that vision has been strengthened by Guttenberg’s familial connection with Otto von Habsburg. Strauss’s and Habsburg’s vision for the development of a united Europe, under Teutonic Catholic leadership, is portrayed in their respective treatises on the subject, The Grand Design and The Social Order of Tomorrow.

Continuing and, in time, adding to Germany’s involvement in the war in Afghanistan is vital to Guttenberg’s goal of keeping defense in the headlines in Germany in the process of addressing his stated commitment to changing public opinion to support that deployment. That’s where both the Kunduz affair and the recent loss of German troops come into play. Both add to a sense of crisis.

We have often quoted those who correctly observe that, by nature, the German political mind thrives on crisis. It cannot bear to be unsettled through disorder. Thus, if order is not forthcoming in any given situation, it will even work to create a greater crisis so it can impose its own solution on the situation in the state’s best interests. That is what is emerging out of Germany’s involvement in Afghanistan. If Guttenberg can adroitly continue to manage this crisis, eventually he will have the whole nation calling for him to take over as its leader!

Second is the militarily strategic deployment of the Bundeswehr in a region vital to Germany’s survival. Via its quiet engagement in encircling the oil golden triangle in the Middle East—the German Navy being deployed in the Mediterranean thus securing Suez, patrolling off the coast of Lebanon securing the Levant, the German military in Sudan, the navy off the Somalian and Yemeni coastlines securing the Persian Gulf, and the military active in Afghanistan—Germany is in a prime position to present itself in the role of an in-area peacekeeper in this hottest spot on the planet. It also, via strategic deployment in these localities, retains a prime bargaining position for access to Mideast oil as an offset to dependence on Russia. At the same time, it maintains an actively deployed strategic readiness to secure future Middle East oil assets and guarantee safe passage to the black gold via Suez and the Adriatic Sea—the one protected by German naval deployment securing the Mediterranean, the other by virtue of an implicit alliance with Albania, one of Germany’s Balkan proxies.

Thirdly, and soon to be most important of all, Germany’s deployment in Afghanistan gives it a prime strategic location from which to press the inevitable attack on the one nation that threatens the overall stability of the Middle East and, through its terror-sponsoring activities, the rest of the world—Iran!

What is happening in Afghanistan today is presenting an ideal opportunity for the rise to leadership in Europe of an individual whom Herbert Armstrong declared decades ago would appear suddenly on the scene to lead a united European power to eliminate a threat against it posed by a Middle Eastern power to its south. In all probability, those men who will lead a united Europe and a strongly armed Middle Eastern power to an almighty clash are active on the scene today. Our editor in chief clearly identified the most threatening leading power in the Middle East as Iran even before many secular commentators woke up to that reality. Herbert Armstrong long ago identified Germany as being the nation from which a powerful political leader would arise to put down the nuclear terrorist threat from that southern nation.

Each American setback in Afghanistan—and they will continue to be numerous—each German fatality and each move by a turncoat political leader in that extremely unstable country, brings this great clash between a future “king of the north” and a “king of the south” one step closer. The danger this poses to your continuing to lead a peaceful existence is massive—and getting extremely closer day by day. You need to really understand just what is happening in Afghanistan and the whole Middle Eastern region. Events in that greatly destabilized region will soon affect you wherever you live on this planet.

Watch the Key of David television program to stay abreast of these developments and to understand their meaning. Read our booklets Who or What Is the Prophetic Beast? and The King of the South for real insight as to the outcome of these dramatic world events and what you can do to protect yourself and your family from the fallout.

This is vital knowledge which you owe it to yourself and your loved ones to understand and to keep up to date with, daily, as this greatly disordered civilization lurches toward its inevitable meeting with its God-ordained destiny.