GLOBAL MILITARY DEVELOPMENTS

Matthew 24:6 prophesied that in the latter days, “wars and rumors of wars” would characterize those times. That is certainly true, but that is just one of the many current events and trends which are fulfilling latter day biblical prophecies. The topic of “wars and rumors of wars” is inherently linked to news about military weaponry, deployments, etc., so this is one area that I try to watch closely. Periodically, I share with readers news about major military trends and deployments, and this is one such post.

The first topic I’ll address is the ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia which resulted from Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. Clearly this war has cost each nation a huge number of casualties among troops and heavy losses of military hardware. I’ve seen reports that Russia has lost approximately 200,000 troops killed and Ukraine has had about 100,000 killed. Let’s put this scale of losses into perspective. This means that Russia has lost, in just one year, about 4 times what the USA lost in the entire Vietnam War which lasted over a decade. Both sides have reportedly planned Spring offensives and the mass killing is expected to go on. The first link relates that two nations, Slovakia and Poland, are beginning to transfer to Ukraine Soviet-era MiG-29 warplanes to replenish the Ukrainian air force. Slovakia has pledged to give 13 such warplanes to Ukraine and Poland’s final total is not yet known. This is far more useful to Ukraine now as its pilots can fly these warplanes without retraining delays. If F-16s or other unfamiliar planes are given to Ukraine’s air force, it will be months before they could be used effectively. Ukraine needs the MiG-29s now. The second link gives us a glimpse into how severely Russia may have exhausted its armored forces in its ill-advised invasion of Ukraine. This link indicates that Russia is activating obsolete tanks from storage which are decades old! If this report is true, it means Russia has lost even more tanks and armored vehicles than previously thought. It would show that Russia is “scraping the bottom of the barrel” to keep on fighting this war. Supporting such a conclusion is the fact that Russia has had to buy and use many attack drones from Iran to strike Ukrainian targets, which shows Russia has largely used up much of its own missile and drone weaponry.

This war is bleeding both sides, but Ukrainian civilians are paying a heavy toll. While I admire the bravery and determination of the Ukrainian fighters, Ukraine’s leaders must realize that Ukraine cannot continue to sustain such losses to its population and infrastructures. A negotiated settlement is urgently needed. It is also needed because the USA and NATO nations will eventually run out of weaponry and ammunition to give to the Ukrainians. At the beginning of World War II, Russia invaded Finland, expecting an easy win. The Finns fought back with tenacity and a negotiated settlement was reached where Russia gave up any hope of conquering Finland, but Finland ceded about 10% of its territory to Russia to maintain Finnish independence. This would be a good model for Ukraine to follow. While Ukraine seems willing to fight to the last American bullet it is given, it needs to be realistic and agree to a negotiated settlement. What could motivate Ukraine to agree to lose a slice of its territory to end the conflict? I have a suggestion. If Ukraine would agree to a loss of some territory to end the war, the NATO nations could agree to expedite Ukraine’s entry into NATO as a full member. That might be acceptable.

In the Mideast, Iranian-backed proxy force have staged attacks against American bases in eastern Syria which killed a contractor and wounded US troops (third link). The US Air Force struck back at the Iranian-backed proxy forces. This smoldering conflict could develop into a regional war pitting the USA against Iran. This would further deplete American weaponry and reserves and would make a Chinese invasion of Taiwan more likely. An Israeli-Iranian war is also possible within months, according to the fourth link. This is a real danger, but “rumors” of an imminent Israeli-Iranian war have been surfacing for years. Israel has for years attacked Iranian military assets in Syria and Lebanon to deter such a war, but those efforts may not be enough. Israel is now deeply divided internally over political issues, and Iran could see this as an opportune time to attack Israel.

Shifting to the Indo-Pacific region, there are also new developments. Remember the Chinese actions to build new islands in the South China Sea to create new military bases? The fifth link shows that China is developing new technologies to build such artificial islands much more quickly. If China brazenly starts to create such islands close to Taiwanese territory, a war between the USA and China over Taiwan will be almost inevitable. Almost surely, Japan and South Korea would also intervene in such a war due to their own self-interests. The sixth link details a cutting-edge new technology China is deploying to enable it to conduct a “Pearl Harbor style” attack on the USA and its allies with hypersonic missiles. This is especially noteworthy as Ezekiel 38-39’s latter-day prophecy about a final World War III on earth to end this current age warns that just such an attack will hit the USA and its global allies in the opening rounds of a new war which the West will not expect (Ezekiel 38:9-12). [Full information on this and other related biblical prophecies can be found in my article, What Ezekiel 38-39 Reveal about a Future World War III.]

Conversely, the USA is also taking action to prepare for a future war. The USA and Philippines have renewed their historic alliance, and the USA has been invited back into that nation. The USA is rebuilding old Philippine airfields to accommodate modern warplanes (seventh link). Australia is also taking major steps to prepare itself for an Indo-Pacific war with China. Besides purchasing a fleet of nuclear-powered attack submarines from the USA as part of the new AUKUS alliance between the USA, the UK and Australia, Australia is also taking steps to create a “satellite mesh” which will be able to track enemy submarines, ballistic and hypersonic missiles, etc. via satellites and also create new AI, and drone warfare capabilities to defend Australia (eighth link). Keep in mind that it will take years for Australia to receive any of those new nuclear-powered subs. It takes a long time to build them.

In an ominous development, Russia is deploying submarines which can launch missile strikes at US mainland targets. Russian submarines with nuclear capabilities will be increasingly stationed off American coasts (ninth link). It should also be remembered that the USA has ballistic missile subs which for many years have targeted Russian (and presumably, Chinese and North Korean) locations.

Now let’s look at the sad state of the US Navy, which will bear the brunt of fighting any Indo-Pacific war with China. The tenth link discusses the one-year delay in the construction of the newest US carrier, the USS John Kennedy. Delays in construction and maintenance are endemic among the US navy ship schedules. One US attack submarine, the USS Boise, has been at dock waiting 6 years for its scheduled maintenance so it can go back into service (eleventh link). The US Navy’s roster of warships is declining rapidly. One reason is the Biden administration’s desire to retire ships at an accelerated rate (for reasons unknown). The Biden administration wanted to decommission as many as 24 warships in the recent fiscal year, but Congress cut that to a total of eight ships to be retired (twelfth link). Of the Navy’s amphibious attack ships, only 1/3rd are actually ready to deploy (thirteenth link). The truth is these links show the Biden administration is disarming the US navy at the exact time that China is rapidly building new modern warships. When/if a war begins with China, the US is almost certain to begin losing ships. Replacement ships will be needed immediately. If Biden decommissions a large number of US warships, there will be no replacement ships to put into the fight. Significantly disarming the US Navy at this dangerous time begs the question: Whose side is Biden on? It is critical to retain all US warships until new warships are actually available to replace them in active duty. The Navy must also get serious about maintaining its ships. The slipshod maintenance of US warships is shocking. Not long ago, an amphibious carrier, the USS Bonhomme Richard, literally burned up at its pier while it was being “overhauled.” The ship was a total loss. No good answer was ever given for this massive loss. I suspect sophisticated sabotage. The fourteenth link offers an essay about how the US Navy can be “saved.”

In examining reasons to explain the terrible inefficiency in the US Defense Department, I came across a stunning fact. Guess how many civilian employees there are in the US Defense Department? The fifteenth link has the incredible answer. It is a Google search page listing of suggested links. It shows that there are somewhere between 600,000 and 950,000 such employees. Apparently no one knows how many there are. How can the military need that many civilian employees? Clearly, the US military is feather bedded with excess civilian employees. There are so many thousands of such employees imposing change-orders, rewrites, delays, upgrades. etc. to each military order that it is a wonder anything gets done. The best way, in my opinion, to improve the US military is to fire at least half the civilian employees, freeing up mega-billions of dollars to use on actual weapons systems! I’m afraid the Defense Departments is so filled with political appointees not doing anything needed that maybe we even have a “Deputy Assistant Under-Secretary for Distributing Paper Clips in Alaskan Military Bases.” I’m jesting here to make my point.

From a biblical point of view, it is clear that our enemies are preparing for a war to conquer the USA and its allies. The Biden administration’s actions show that it is not taking this threat at all seriously. At some future point, the Gog-Magog alliance of Ezekiel 38-39 (Russia, China, Iran, etc.) will see a complacent USA and its Western allies as such a juicy, disarmed target that they will make the decision to attack and conquer the USA, NATO, Japan and all the Western allies. The prophecy shows that this will occur just before the end of this age and the dawning of the Messianic Age. Matthew 24:21-31 also addresses this same time. It states that a “Great Tribulation” will occur which creates such destruction on the earth that “all flesh” would perish unless Divine intervention occurred. “All flesh” means all humans, all animals, all birds, all fish…Everything! This near extinction level event is the great final war of this age–described in Ezekiel 38-39, Joel 2, Revelation 16 and 19 and other biblical prophecies. Please read the above-cited article to see how the biblical latter-day prophecies all fit together.

As I was finishing this blog post, I learned of one final item to add. The final link reports that Vladimir Putin is escalating the stakes in the Ukraine-Russia war by announcing he will station Russian tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus. That Russian satellite nation borders Ukraine and four NATO nations. You can see the obvious danger here. If President Biden has any backbone and sense of proportional response, he will announce that the USA is going to position tactical missiles with nuclear warheads in Poland and other NATO nations with those missiles to be aimed at targets in Belarus, Russia and the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad. If he doesn’t do this, the same cowardice that led to the panicky withdrawal from Afghanistan will be evident. Saudi Arabia already abandoned the USA as an ally by having China oversee the restoration of diplomatic relations between Iran and the Saudis. Unless Biden matches Putin’s nuclear deployment actions, America will lose even more allies.

We desperately need new leaders in Washington, headed by a new, competent and pro-American president. Our national survival depends on it.

GLOBAL MILITARY DEVELOPMENTS

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