Europe's Nuclear Secret

From 1999 through 2010, Time magazine wrote a number of articles about “Europe’s dirty secret.” What is that secret? The fact that America stores hundreds of nuclear weapons there.

Most people are completely unaware of this situation. Even those who are scrutinizing it don’t fully understand the dangers posed by these weapons.

When we talk about European nations with nuclear weapons, we usually think of Britain and France. But there are five other nations with nuclear bombs, bombs that technically belong to America.

In Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany and Turkey, the United States has about 150 to 200 thermonuclear bombs. It originally deployed those bombs and more to nato nations in Europe during the Cold War from 1947 to 1991. At the peak of this program, America had over 7,300 tactical nuclear weapons in Europe. Since the Berlin Wall came down, those numbers have steadily fallen. But many of these weapons remain there.

Are those bombs still necessary? Is it still worth the risk to leave nuclear weapons in nations that were America’s enemies as recently as World War ii?

Does anyone remember the destruction these nations caused, or the devastation nuclear weapons have wreaked?

Think about this statement from a 2005 report by Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists: “[One] interesting feature is that nuclear weapons that were withdrawn from two German bases, two Turkish bases, and one Italian base is the mid-1990s were not returned to the United States but transferred to the main U.S. base in those countries. … In all of these cases, the weapons continue to be earmarked for ‘host nation use’ and delivery by the national air forces.” The exact number of tactical nuclear weapons deployed, stored and earmarked for host nation use is classified. But when you add these that were supposed to be “withdrawn” yet still exist in host nations to the numbers reported as still actively deployed, then the nightmare only gets worse.

Nuclear weapons are a horrific menace. Just one can vaporize a city full of people. Two hundred of them are enough to destroy the whole world! Yet America has given those bombs to these five nations—two of which were our bitter enemies just 70 years ago!

The crucial question is, does the United States really have control over those bombs?

How Secure Are These Weapons?

Time magazine said these weapons technically belong to Washington, but do they in reality? They remain under U.S. control unless permission is given to hand them over to the host nation in times of war. However, following a series of blunders over the years, the security of these nukes has been called into question.

“According to a Blue Ribbon Review set up by the U.S. Air Force in 2008, most U.S. nuclear weapons storage sites in Europe do not meet U.S. Defense Department security standards,” wrote Tom Sauer and Bob van der Zwaan in a May 2011 report for the Harvard Kennedy School, called “U.S. Tactical Nuclear Weapons in Europe After nato’s Lisbon Summit: Why Their Withdrawal Is Desirable and Feasible.”

The Kleine Brogel Air Base in Belgium is one of the bases that hosts America’s tactical nuclear weapons. In 2001, this base was the target of an al Qaeda extremist named Nizar Trabelsi. In 2010, the same base was penetrated by peace activists. The activists climbed the perimeter fence and wandered around the base for more than an hour, videotaping their escapade. When they were finally caught, base security didn’t even confiscate the videotape!

It is appalling that the U.S. is so careless with something so deadly dangerous! This is the kind of mistake that will have terrible real-world consequences.

Do you think that the European nations that host these weapons are as indifferent about them as America is?

America designed those hundreds of bombs to mount to planes in their host country. In a Dec. 2, 2009, article titled “What to Do About Europe’s Secret Nukes?” Time wrote, “Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Dutch, Belgian, Italian and German pilots remain ready to engage in nuclear war” (emphasis mine throughout). That’s right, Germany and Italy—America’s bitter enemies in World War ii—are ready to wage nuclear war with bombs that belong to the United States!

The nato alliance was built during the Cold War primarily as a protection against the Soviet Union. nato’s website says this about the alliance’s nuclear capacity: “Nuclear forces based in Europe and committed to nato provide an essential political and military link between the European and the North American members of the alliance. The alliance will therefore maintain adequate nuclear forces in Europe” (April 24, 1999).

But now there are new enemies on the world scene—and the U.S. can’t see who they are!

Think about the potential for a nuclear debacle. Little could stand in the way of those nations taking over those bombs and using them however they choose. Those weapons could conceivably be turned back on America!

Upgrades

Washington officials are planning to upgrade the B61 nuclear weapons that are stored in Europe. The new B61-12 will replace the older types 3, 4, 7, 10 and 11 and B83. The new weapon is to replace bombs that are already 90 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima (Der Spiegel, Nov. 6, 2013). Hans Kristensen described it as an “all-in-one nuclear bomb on steroids.”

This new bomb is designed to be deployed from German Tornado fighter planes. The multinational version of the Joint Strike Fighter will also have inbuilt capabilities to carry and deliver these weapons. Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey have already committed to purchasing these aircraft. The new B61 bomb will be the most powerful and deadly nuclear weapon ever deployed in Germany and other nuclear sharing nations.

How naive is America to entrust this immense firepower to nations that so recently—and throughout history—have proved to be enemies of the free world!

Tactical weapons are usually carried by short-range delivery vehicles like cruise missiles or fighter/bomber aircraft with ranges under 850 miles. They are not capable of intercontinental launch—but they are small enough to be shipped wherever needed in the back of a truck!

Another horrific consideration to contemplate: These smaller devices are at risk of theft by rogue nations or terrorists. These are immensely powerful weapons! Can we really trust other nations with such firepower?

Right now, Germany seems to be an ally of the United States. But what if this nation—our archenemy in World Wars i and ii—turned against us in the next war?

We want to trust Germany, but history screams that we shouldn’t! Yet, not only do we equip the Germans with our weapons, but we train their air force on American bases such as Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico.

What the U.S. is doing is absolutely condemned by the Bible. Why? Because it is trusting other nations rather than trusting God.

The Revival of an Old Empire

Here is why even the Time writer’s worst scenario is nothing compared to what is about to actually happen.

America has forgotten what Hitler-led Germany and Mussolini-led Italy did in World War ii. But this problem isn’t just confined to World Wars i and ii. The combination of Germany and Italy is really the heart of the “Holy” Roman Empire, which has risen up six times to cause bloodshed like no other empire in history! Six times—so far!

Germany’s alliance with Italy against America and Britain in World War ii, just seven decades ago, was the sixth resurrection of this centuries-long, destructive church-state combine called the “Holy” Roman Empire.

And now, this empire is back. The seventh and last revival of that empire has now formed. When the moment is right, it will once again rise up as a horribly destructive, nuclear-armed church-state combine that will wreak destruction and death like you can hardly believe!

All of this was prophesied in your Bible: the repeated resurrections of this empire, its sixth appearance in the Nazi-fascist alliance, its current rise in a German-led European alliance—even how long this final revival will last, and how it will end.

This is where biblical prophecy actually has good news for us: because this empire’s last resurrection is going to conclude with the Second Coming of Jesus Christ!

Friend or Foe?

Boyden Gray, U.S. ambassador to the European Union, said that Germany is America’s “most important ally.” Does his saying that make it so? Not according to Bible prophecy.

In the Bible, God condemns America and Britain (and the other modern descendants of ancient Israel) for forsaking Him and for doting on their “lovers.” And today, what do we find ourselves doing? Arming two warlike nations, our historic enemies, with nuclear firepower! This is an appallingly dangerous mistake!

In the end-time book of Ezekiel, God says, “And Aholah [speaking of the modern nations of Israel] played the harlot when she was mine; and she doted on her lovers, on the Assyrians her neighbours …. Wherefore I have delivered her into the hand of her lovers, into the hand of the Assyrians, upon whom she doted” (Ezekiel 23:5, 9). This whole chapter concerns Israel, here called Aholah, and the Jews, called Aholibah, setting themselves up for one of the most shocking betrayals in history!

“She doted upon the Assyrians her neighbours, captains and rulers clothed most gorgeously, horsemen riding upon horses, all of them desirable young men” (verse 12). This is a very militaristic country, a nation with impressive soldiers. An American ambassador might call them “our most important ally.”

“And as soon as she saw them with her eyes, she doted upon them, and sent messengers unto them into Chaldea. And the Babylonians came to her into the bed of love, and they defiled her with their whoredom, and she was polluted with them, and her mind was alienated from them” (verses 16-17). In our time, “the Babylonians” refers to the Holy Roman Empire, which has Germany, Italy and the Vatican at its core.

God has a strong view about cozying up to “lovers” like that. It’s a matter of trust. Washington has no trust in God for protection, so it is trusting another nation—in this case, one with a terrifying history! We have put human beings ahead of God. God condemns modern Israel—especially America, Britain and the Jews—because they have “forgotten me” (verse 35). That is a serious mistake these nations are going to come to regret.

Rearming Germany

Near the close of World War ii, Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt presented a document promising they would never allow Germany to arm itself again. They were motivated by their recent experience and the long history of German warfare, which actually goes all the way back to ancient Assyria.

That promise has long been forgotten. Do you know that today, Germany is actually building components needed in nuclear weapons?

Prof. Michel Chossudovsky wrote an article published by Global Research on March 21, 2013, titled, “Belgium or Iran, Where’s the Nuclear Threat? Europe’s Five ‘Undeclared Nuclear Weapons States.’” In it he wrote, “While Germany is not categorized officially as a nuclear power, it produces nuclear warheads for the French Navy. It stockpiles nuclear warheads (made in America) and it has the capabilities of delivering nuclear weapons. Moreover, the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company (eads), a Franco-German-Spanish joint venture controlled by Deutsche Aerospace and the powerful Daimler Group, is Europe’s second-largest military producer, supplying France’s M51 nuclear missile.”

That is astounding! In a single lifetime, we have gone from denying Germany the right to ever militarize again—to letting it build nuclear warheads!

By starting World War ii, Germany and Italy caused the deaths of some 50 million people! Now, because we think these nations have changed, we have given them our nuclear bombs. But have these nations really changed? Are we absolutely sure they will never repeat their past?

Many authors have shown that after World War ii, the Allies spent just two years de-Nazifying Germany. Then we stopped and told the Germans to de-Nazify themselves. Now, based on our assumption that they completed the job, we risk nuclear annihilation.

The truth is that at the end of World War ii, when they knew defeat was inevitable, Nazi leaders began to prepare to go underground. Major corporations like Messerschmitt and Volkswagen committed to hiring some of the top Nazi officials so they could continue their plan for German domination underground until World War iii.

That is documented history! In the 1990s, U.S. intelligence declassified that information for all to see—after shamefully keeping it secret for 50 years!

When proof of this secret plan became public, Elan Steinberg of the World Jewish Congress said, “The central question is whether it has been carried out.” We have shown repeatedly that it was carried out! There are elites within Germany who never did give up on the plan to conquer the world. And now, America has turned control of some incredibly powerful U.S. weaponry over to this nation!

This is an insane policy, even by normal standards of common sense. But God sees it for what it really is. He says America and Britain are worse than a prostitute: We are like a woman who has forsaken her husband and become a prostitute who pays the customer to come to her (Ezekiel 16:33-34). That’s how abominable this is to God!

The sobering reality is that any one of the countries that have those bombs could take control of these weapons by force and use them against the U.S. Two hundred nuclear bombs are sitting in European countries—enough to destroy the world—and the proliferation is spreading!

Matthew 24:21-22 encapsulate this terrifying reality. It says that, because of all the nuclear bombs and other weapons that are about to explode, no flesh will be saved alive—unless Jesus Christ returns!

But the awesome news is that Christ willreturn! He will let us experience the suffering we have brought upon ourselves because of our sins. But just as sure as those seven resurrections of the Holy Roman Empire have come on the scene exactly according to prophecy—and just as sure as the prophesied World War iii is about to come—we can be absolutely confident that He will return.

When that happens, these bombs and all the destruction they wreak will be destroyed forever. Jesus Christ will bring the solution to this terrible problem. You can prove that truth straight from your own Bible.

Thank God for that endless hope! ▪