Prophecy Update: Russia and the Coming War

Early in 1977 a retired NATO general called together six of his collegues–including an admiral, an airman, an economist and a diplomat–to write a dramatized game-plan for the next world war. General John Hackett wrote, “The Third World War – The Untold Story.” I read this book in the early 1980’s and it was an intriguing study of the war fighting abilities of the NATO countries in conflict with the Soviet bloc nations. In the end the Americans lead the forces of the nations allied with them to victory. It might surprise you to learn that one of the problems that the Soviets faced was using conscripts who hated the Soviet Union. The KGB forces would line up behind the conscripts and force them into battle and they would shoot their own people if they retreated. In all of history, slave armies can never win battles against free armies.

Another British General has written a book about war with Russia. Consider this summary of the book: “The rapid rise in Russia’s power over the course of the last ten years has been matched by a stunning lack of international diplomacy on the part of its president, Vladimir Putin. One consequence of this, when combined with Europe’s rapidly shifting geopolitics, is that the West is on a possible path toward nuclear war. Former deputy commander of NATO General Sir Richard Shirreff speaks out about this very real peril in this call to arms, a novel that is a barely disguised version of the truth. In chilling prose, it warns allied powers and the world at large that we risk catastrophic nuclear conflict if we fail to contain Russia’s increasingly hostile actions.” To set up the fiction part of the book, Shirreff states in the forward that the West and NATO have not responded to the Russian aggression.

In 2008 Russia invaded into Georgia and the response from the West and Nato was nothing. Shirreff said of this, “So an initial Russian toe in the invasion waters had shown Putin what he could get away with; Hitler and the reoccupation of the Rhineland in 1936 came strongly to my mind, even as far back as 2008.” (pg. xx Preface) When Russia invaded and took back the Crimea in 2014 Shirreff said, “The annexation of Crimea and the President’s vow to reunite ‘Russian speakers’ in the former republics of the Soviet Union under the banner of Mother Russia, was little different from Hitler’s annexation of the Sudetenland in 1938.” (pg. xvi Preface)

The attitude of the Russians and Putin is summarized in this speech by Putin, “Russia and the Ukraine are ‘one nation’ and Kiev is the mother of Russian cities.’ Here is where the threat of war with Russia is greater today than any time in history. Russia is not a slave state anymore, their armed forces is full of people who believe in Mother Russia and the need to protect her borders. It is anathema to the Russians that their borders are protected by nations in NATO. Ukraine is not in NATO but the West made a mistake in 2008 to promise Ukraine membership in NATO. Putin invaded Georgia as a message to the west, don’t mess with our borders.

In 1994, after the fall of the Soviet Union, many nations broke off from the Soviet Union. Four of those nations are in grave danger of invasion today. Those four nations are Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, and Ukraine and Ukraine is currently at war with Russia. Slowly but surely, Ukraine has fallen to the Russians. The West has done nothing but shown pacifism that would embolden someone like Putin. 1994 was an important date for another reason; the ‘Budapest Memorandum’ was an agreement between America, Russia, and the British in which Ukraine agreed to give up its nuclear weapons in return for US and Russia guarantees of its territorial integrity. Shirreff said, “Russia had torn up the Budapest Memorandum and Obama had chosen to forget American promises.” In 2014 there was this article in the British paper Daily Mail that bears on this problem:

Revealed: The forgotten treaty which could drag the US and UK into WAR with Russia if Putin’s troops intervene in Ukraine

“Bill Clinton, John Major, Boris Yeltsin and Leonid Kuchma – the then-rulers of the USA, UK, Russia and Ukraine – agreed to the The Budapest Memorandum as part of the denuclearization of former Soviet republics after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Technically it means that if Russia has invaded Ukraine then it would be difficult for the US and Britain to avoid going to war.” This article goes on to explain how the West found a way to disregard the Memorandum and this pacifism started in spades. Ukraine made a big mistake, they should have never given up its nukes and Russia would not have invaded. The Baltic States are a different story though. They are NATO countries and the US is obligated to fight if Russia invades. Will we?

We broke the treaty with Ukraine and we are breaking our promises to the Baltic States. I hope that President Trump will not follow the pacifism of the Obama Administration. Vice President Pence went to Estonia on July 30th and it was encouraging. TALLINN, Estonia — “U.S. Vice-President Mike Pence on Monday strongly pledged America’s commitment to protecting NATO allies against attacks, including the Baltic states, which have anxiously watched a growing Russian military presence in the region.” Putin responded, “Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday ordered the U.S. to cut its embassy and consulate staff in Russia by 755 people.”
In spite of what President Trump is doing to stand against the Russians, the State department is against his focus on Europe. In 2015 there was a new foreign policy initiative by President Obama called the “Asia Pacific Pivot.” Shirreff said of this, “At that time there was a massive reduction in American forces stationed in Germany. How ironic it was that a month after Putin invaded Crimea the last American tanks left German soil after 69 years.” Shirreff goes on to catalogue the pacifism of the last 3 years that has emboldened Putin to move troops into position to fight, threatened American and British naval and air force troops with fly byes, and taken more land in Syria and replaced ISIS forces with Russian and Iranian forces. Russia has concluded that Britain, Germany, France, and the nations of the European Union have lost the resolve to fight. Has America lost her resolve? Certainly, Pres. Trump has not but our political and intellectual elites say that Trump is nuts and we do not need to rearm. Our nation is in grave danger of war.

Here are the facts: Putin has increased tension in the Middle East in order to spread more Muslims into Europe to destabilize Europe. 2014: 283,532, 2015: 1,822,260 2016: 381,307, and now according to NATO, Putin is weaponizing migration to undermine Europe, causing Libyans to go into Italy. Russia is moving more troops into Belarus, on the Israel border, and more to the Baltic states borders. Hungary, Moldavia, Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Montenegro all have turned away from NATO and the European Union to ally with Russia. A Gallup poll in Greece showed that Greece chooses Russia over NATO. Russia is starting military war games. On Aug.10th the Economist reported that ‘Russia’s largest war game in Europe since the cold war alarms NATO.’ Yet Russia’s upcoming Zapad 2017 military exercises with 13,000 troops near the Baltic States’ borders in September may further strain relations. Russia reported 13,000 soldiers participating but they moved 100,000 troops into position for the war games. The Lithuanian President is so alarmed that she called for the US to move troops into her country. What did NATO and America do, we sent 1000 troops to each of the three Baltic States, what a joke. Consider this headline in a military magazine, ‘US Commander Warns NATO Couldn’t Repel Russian Baltic Invasion.’
NATO would currently be unable to protect the Baltics against a Russian attack, the commander of US ground forces in Europe, General Ben Hodges, said in a news report Wednesday. “Russia could take over the Baltic states faster than we would be able to defend them,” Hodges was quoted as saying in a German-language article by news weekly Die Zeit. He said they would fall in 36 to 60 hours! This is the most important fact: NATO has 31,500 troops defending Europe and Russia has 1,605,000 troops in position to invade!

This week Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel went to Russia to meet with Putin. Problem is that the Iranian and Russian troops are growing on the border of Israel. The more Israel accepts Russian troops there and only publicly worry about Iran and not Russian troops, the closer to the GOG MAGOG war we get! Netanyahu told Putin that they may act to stop Iran in Syria! “Iran is already well on its way to controlling Iraq, Yemen and to a large extent is already in practice in control of Lebanon,” Netanyahu told Putin. “We cannot forget for a single minute that Iran threatens every day to annihilate Israel,” Netanyahu said. “Israel opposes Iran’s continued entrenchment in Syria. We will be sure to defend ourselves with all means against this and any threat.” I doubt Putin has any desire to help Israel and is aligned with Iran. Israel will get no help from Putin! In fact, Putin may be GOG and is even now being drawn into a war with Israel.
Bible Prophecy does not happen at the whims of man. It happens on God’s time, and the Lord has brought Russia into Syria on the border with Israel. Aligned with Iran, Russia is not there because of geopolitics, it is because God is causing them to be there for His purpose of judging them!
Ezekiel 38:2, Thus says the Lord GOD, “Behold, I am against you, O Gog, prince of Rosh, Meshech and Tubal. 3 “I will turn you about and put hooks into your jaws, and I will bring you out, and all your army, horses and horsemen, all of them. 8 “After many days you will be summoned; in the latter years you will come into the land that is restored from the sword, 39:2 and I will turn you around, drive you on, take you up from the remotest parts of the north and bring you against the mountains of Israel.” It is clear that God is even now dragging Russia and Iran into Syria so that they can attack Israel. The appeasement of the West has emboldened Russia—pray that they will be restrained.