Another question I posted in last week’s article is whether the European Union possesses a military capable of Middle East conquest now.
- The question is important to consider because there are some people who believe the Antichrist will emerge from Europe and/or utilize European forces in a war of conquest in the Middle East.
- If the European Union does not possess a military ready for Middle East conquest then the start of the End Times may be delayed at least until the time when it finally possesses one.
- I aggregated the troop level data for each European Union member country to come up with a size estimate of a hypothetical European Army. If we combined the forces of the 27 current members of the European Union, there would be a military of 1,897,013 active troops, 2,610,953 troops in reserve, and 535,199 paramilitary troops, or a combined 5,043,165 total troops.[1] This combined force would be one of the top ten militaries by troop size in the world…
Although this European force is a formidable one, it is highly unlikely that a European leader could mobilize all of Europe’s military assets for a war of conquest in the Middle East right now since each country possesses control over their respective armed forces.
- Let’s say a European leader wanted to invade and conquer Iran. It’s highly unlikely that 27 different European countries would agree to contribute their military forces for an invasion of Iran. The best a European leader could probably accomplish right now is to form a collation of the willing.
The European Union-as a political entity-possesses a relatively small number of troops that it controls. Here are the main forces that the European Union-the political entity-controls:
- Eurocorps: A force of 60,000 troops comprised from several Western European countries.
- E.U. Battle Groups: Rapid reaction, expeditionary forces consisting of 1500 troops, on average, in each unit. There are reportedly 13 E.U. Battle Groups that have been formed so far. There role is to aid in humanitarian, peacekeeping, and peacemaking.
- Eurofor: A rapid reaction force that performs humanitarian, peacekeeping, military advising, and peacemaking missions. Later this year Eurofor will serve as an E.U. Battle Group.
Together, these forces provide the European Union with some ability to react to humanitarian crises and other type of international crises fairly quickly, but not with the ability to conquer the Middle East.
The European Union would most likely need to form a European Army of its own to provide a potential, future leader with the ability to conquer the Middle East since it is too difficult and time-consuming to convince each member of the European Union to agree to provide their individual military assets for a war of conquest.
- European leaders have been working on creating the framework to form a European Army recently. In 2009 the European Parliament approved Synchronized Armed Forces Europe (SAFE), which is a concept that is planned to eventually lead to a synchronization of national armed forces of Europe. European leaders in favor of SAFE see the synchronization of Europe’s national armed forces as a significant, first step to accomplishing the “objective of a European army". There are not many details on SAFE available since European leaders are still figuring out how to implement this concept…
- Economic considerations may also serve as a catalyst to help unify the national armed forces of Europe. European countries can achieve significant cost savings when they pool together/share their military assets. For instance, British Prime Minister David Cameron cited the savings of several million British Pounds as one of the motivating factors behind last year’s Britain and France’s military cooperation agreement (where they agreed to share military assets like aircraft carriers with each other).
In sum, the European Union-as a political entity-does not yet have a military ready to conquer the Middle East. At the moment, it would be very difficult for a leader to mobilize all the military assets of Europe for a war of Middle East conquest since the member countries have control over whether their forces can be used or not. In addition, the military forces that the European Union does have under its control are primarily equipped to deal with humanitarian and other type of international crises.
The European Union is likely going to need time to form a European Army from the various national armed forces of Europe. The process to create a European Army is underway, but you’re unlikely going to see the creation of a European Army overnight as this process will require some time.
Reference
[1] Source: Hackett, James (ed.) The Military Balance 2010 London: Routledge, 2010
13 comments: (+add yours?)
Sorry to ask a question off topic here, but I have been doing some research into the disasters that hit America every time we try to force Israel to give up land. Do you have anything in your archives about that? This is different from just the escalation of earthquakes etc. This is how natural or other disasters relate in timing to peace negotiations. I have about 5 pages of stuff from 1991 to 2008, but lack info from then to now, such as what was going on with the peace deals when the oil spill happened. What with all the strange weather going on the past couple of months et al, and knowing that we are in the process of pressuring Israel again, I was curious as to what has been going on the past few years and also to guess how bad things are going to get in the future based on how things are escalating each time we have negotiations.
You've mentioned a topic I've thought about over the past several years. However, I have not written an article about it nor do I have any data collected.
I've wondered about a freak dry lightning storm on June 21, 2008 which unleashed 8000 lightning strikes on California. The lightning strikes led to more than 800 wildfires-some taking weeks to put out. Here is a story on it: http://bit.ly/edrc4y
If I recall correctly, what was strange about it was that it was a sunny day in state... the storm appeared out of nowhere...
You might want to checkout what happened between the U.S. and Israel around that time period. When I have more time I might try to dig up other examples.
Out of curiosity, is Katrina one of your examples?
The only thing I could find on June 21 was the truce with Hamas, continued negotiations with Syria, and an offer to have talks with Lebanon. There was no mention of U.S. involvement in these things in any articles I could find, but when isn't there pressure from us? As for Katrina, oh boy, that was definitely because we did something to Israel. I will send you what I have later on today or tomorrow. As said, I only have through 2008 so far. There is much more I am sure, but to find connections I will have to research both weather and other disasters and find out who was doing what in Israel.
I'm curious to see what you have...
I'm getting close to a breakthrough on Ezekiel 38 and Ezekiel 39... If I were not working on that I would be able to do a lot more with regards to your research.
I did some more digging and found this for June 21, 2008. "In a show of unity, Sen. Barack Obama met in Chicago on Friday morning with 16 Democratic governors, a group that included several potential running mates and at least a few past supporters of Sen. Hillary Clinton.The official topic of the discussion was the nation's economy, but the unstated goal was to demonstrate that Democrats have rallied around Obama, now that the long and sometimes brutal nomination fight is over."
and this article on the same subject "As Sen. Barack Obama met with 16 Democratic governors in Chicago on Friday, the 50 state flags that surrounded them were arranged in an order that represented when the states joined the union, starting with Delaware and ending with Hawaii. The seating arrangements at the table, however, took a decidedly more political approach. At Obama's side, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano and Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle received the choicest spots, while two former Sen. Hillary Clinton supporters from key battleground states -- Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell and Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm -- were also seated at the head table.Featuring more than half of the nation's 28 Democratic governors -- including several viewed as potential running mates -- the event was designed as a show of unity for the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee."
You can draw your own conclusions as to whether God was punishing for this.
Some of these are man-made disasters. Some of these man-made disasters might be more coincidence than a judgment... You might want to focus more on natural disasters...
You described what I expected you to describe for Katrina. I remember watching live television coverage of an Israeli woman crying as her house was being bulldozed in the West Bank in August 2005. As I watched, I told my dad in anger twice that "we" (the U.S.) would pay a price for what was unfolding on television.
I also remember watching non-stop coverage of the tropical system that became Katrina. Katrina actually started as a tropical depression that had dissipated. The remnants of Katrina regenerated over the Bahamas and rapidly intensify. Katrina was a storm that actually got stronger over Florida and it did defy the forecast models. The original models had Katrina going through central Florida and then going up to the panhandle. Obviously, that didn't happen...
I guess I don't believe in coincidences. I am of the belief that God uses people to judge nations (such as the Persians conquering the Babylonians - mene, mene,......), as well as natural disasters, since He did is so much in the Old Testament.
I don't dispute that God uses people. What I mean is that I would rely more on the natural disasters than the man-made disasters to make the argument because natural disasters tend to be things that people cannot control. You may have skeptics point out that some man-made disasters were years in the making. I think it is much more difficult for a skeptic to dispute natural disasters like Katrina. I think you can use man-made disasters to strengthen your argument as well...
The example that made me think of "coincidence" is your November 20, 1998 example. I wonder what type of business, economic, and financial headlines came out that day. The stock market tends to move on business, economic, and financial headlines more than anything else, so I wondered if there were other news drivers moving the market...
Edit: I just checked Yahoo Finance Historical data and do not see evidence that the Dow Jones fell by 216 around the time of November 20, 1998. I saw the Dow Jones rose by nearly 216 on November 23, the first trading date after November 20
The one thing you can count on when researching on the internet is that there are mistakes, not only of information but I've seen some doozy typos. My son is always questioning my sources, and as I tell him, ultimately you are always gambling on any source no matter what, as everybody gets their information from somebody else who gets their information from somebody else, etc. Like playing the game telephone, even the news services write things that are not so. I have seen this happen more than once. Recent example, James Blunt (a British songwriter/singer) put on his facebook page (as a joke) that he was going to be the organist at the royal wedding this weekend. Every news service picked it up and printed it as a fact. So you see the problem. At some point you have to quit checking the resources of the resources of the resources and just accept the data wrong or right, as you could spend an eternity tracking every thing down to its origin. As for the Dow Jones and finances, whether they go up or down is more highly controlled by individuals than you may think, and they move them to suit their plans, so while not an act of God as punishment, it is sometimes very relevant to what is going on and bears mentioning. As for the Virginia Tech guy, supposedly he had some Arab words penned across his arm. True? I didn't see his arm, so I don't know. It makes an interesting connection if true. As my writings are written to show interconnections between all sorts of things, I include anything of interest. I simply didn't edit out everything I sent to you. I will check the Dow Jones thing. Feel free to delete my post and use what information you like.
I understand the issue. I noticed that the typo originated from a list that appeared on a different website, so no way did I mean to imply that you were responsible for the typo. The person who made the typo probably made an honest mistake. The number 2 key is next to the number 3 key on the keyboard.
I don't see a need to delete your post at the moment unless you want it deleted
It's up to you whether you wanted it deleted. The info I got on that particular item was not from a website, so I am assuming that wherever the first error was made it has been propagated onto multiple places. I have noticed that there are a number of websites with this information on it, so I am guessing they all have the same error. Right now I am just in the process of downloading all of the data I can find and then I will have to spend time wading through the stuff to pick out things that are important. I hadn't really gotten to the point of checking stuff out yet as I am just in the stage of collecting at the moment. Thus there may be many more errors in what I sent you. I have pages and pages of stuff to go through and much yet to look up, and then it is a matter of trying to relate events to political machinations.
I have a link which might aid the research process: http://bit.ly/hovBj0
This link will give you some ability to search through the top headlines on any given day over the past 10 years. You can also search the headlines by subject.
Also, Google's search feature has a timeline feature that enables you to search for webpages created on a certain day.
Thank you.
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