Steven Collins
January 10, 2008
It is well-known to those who follow world news that China and Iran are allied to each other and rapidly militarizing in preparation for a future confrontation with the USA and the Western powers. However, many people think that Russia is militarily weakened and that it poses no threat to the USA. That viewpoint is mistaken. Russia, like its Chinese and Iranian allies, is also rapidly rearming and becoming more militaristic. Russia is in a very good financial position to build new armaments, and it will remain in such a position for the foreseeable future due to large monetary surpluses from its energy exports. The USA is in a very unfavorable position to counter the Russian-Chinese-Iranian military build-up as the USA is not only depleting its military resources in Iraq and Afghanistan, but it is in such a deplorable fiscal situation that new weaponry must be built mostly with borrowed money.
The links below detail some of the recent developments in Russian re-militarization. The first link, from a Russian news service, was sent to me by a reader of this website. It states that Russia has now launched full-scale production of its newest fighter-bomber, the SU-34, at a production facility in Siberia. However, there is a curious contradiction in the content of the news story. On the one hand, it states that Russia intends to produce only 24 of the new aircraft by 2010 and only 58 by 2015. However, it also asserts that Russia’s assembly line for this new warplane is so massive that it can assemble “up to 20 fighters… simultaneously.” If this latter assertion is true, then Russia will be building not dozens but many hundreds of the new warplanes by 2010/2015. The home page of this link also notes that the Russian strategic bomber fleet is now conducting a “major exercise” involving 50 long-range bombers over “the Arctic and Pacific Ocean and the Black and Caspian Sea.” It doesn’t take a rocket-scientist to figure out that those bombing missions (if they flew further before turning around) would be aimed at the USA, the US Pacific Fleet, and US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many “mainstream” media articles have been written that Russia seems to be embarking on a new Cold War against the USA under Vladimir Putin. I agree.
The second link is from FOX-News, and it reports that Russia has successfully tested a new strategic ICBM for its nuclear forces. The new missile, designed to carry 3 or more nuclear warheads, will be a major upgrade to the Russian missile forces. The previous ICBMs, the “Stiletto” and the “Satan” ICBMs, could carry only one warhead on each missile. Russia is, therefore, modernizing its strategic missile systems with better missiles able to carry more nuclear warheads. The USA has deployed no new ICBM in many years. The new Russian ICBM can also be launched from mobile missile launchers (these can be moved around regularly and are much harder to target in any American strike). The USA has no ICBMs which can be launched from mobile-launch vehicles, so the Russians are far ahead of the USA in this aspect of rocketry.
The third link, also from FOX News, reports that the Russian Navy is again deploying fleets of naval vessels into the Mediterranean Sea. The first such sortie was headed by a Russian aircraft carrier, and the article notes the Russian fleet may soon have a permanent home base in the Syrian port of Tartus. The article notes that this action is the “latest move by Russia to expand its military presence internationally and flex growing economic and military strength…bolstered by the torrent of oil revenues pouring into government offices.” To be fair, the article also cites the decay of the Russian military and morale problems which occurred in the post-Cold War years. However, given the fact that Russia is rolling in oil revenues, it is clear that Russia is embarking on its own re-militarization program while he USA is exhausting its military manpower and equipment in two Asian wars. The trend lines are clear for both nations.
Consider this Russian rearmament in the light of Ezekiel 38’s prophecy that Russia, China, Iran and other nations will launch a coordinated, simultaneous attack upon the USA and the western nations (readers of my books have seen the abundant evidence that these nations are the modern descendants of the so-called “lost” ten tribes of Israel which were exiled from the Promised Land which migrated to new locations in the world). Christians have overlooked numerous biblical prophecies that God would still be involved in the destinies of the ten tribes after they went into exile. One such prophecy is in Hosea 1:10, which promised that God would increase their populations to a level far greater than they ever were in the old Promised Land. Genesis 49 contains specific prophesies about the characteristics of each tribe in the “latter day” period of this age, so the Bible is adamant that the ten tribes will be among the nations at the end of our age. Many Bible prophecies become much clearer when one realizes which nations are the modern ten tribes of Israel, because prophesies about “Israel” (the ten tribes) will be fulfilled by their modern nations while prophesies about “Judah” will be fulfilled by the Jews/Israelis. Don’t take my word “on faith” though. Examine the evidence in my books (see book links) and decide for yourself.
When we understand that Russia, China and Iran will all be allies in a military attack against the Western/NATO nations in the future, we then realize that each of those nations need only build a specified portion of the overall armed forces that will be used in a single strike against the Western nations all over the world. Western planners can be mislead by looking at Russia, China or Iran merely as individual nations which could be threats to the USA/NATO. Ezekiel 38 gives us a Divine “sneak peek” into the future, and it reveals all these nations will simultaneously attack the West so it is their combined strength which must be taken into account in Western war planning. One major fallacy of western planners is assuming the eastern alliance is far behind the western nations because “their” alliance lacks the aircraft carriers in the US arsenal. It is this writer’s opinion that Russian-Chinese strategic planners have decided that aircraft carriers are far too vulnerable to massed cruise-missile strikes to justify investing in their construction. As previous blogs have documented, the Chinese are rapidly building whole classes of short-range, medium-range and long-range cruise missiles which could easily be launched simultaneously by the scores (if not hundreds) at US aircraft carriers from air-launched, sea-launched- and land-launched locations. It is known the Chinese are already stalking US carriers to learn their weak points because an undetected Chinese sub surfaced within “kill range” of a US carrier in the Pacific Ocean not long ago.
How many scores or hundreds of supersonic cruise missiles can a US aircraft carrier battle group knock down in a simultaneous attack? Do they carry enough defensive weaponry to “re-load” and defend themselves from two or three such attacks? I hope so, but I doubt it. In an all-out war, how many of those Chinese cruise-missiles will have nuclear warheads? Can the US defend its carriers from cruise missiles with nuclear warheads? US war planners are, I’m afraid, endlessly planning to re-fight World War II’s carrier-based naval battles in any future war. The Russian and Chinese war planners are planning to win World War III, and they intend to eliminate US aircraft carriers with mass cruise missile attacks at the beginning of the war. In ancient times, “arrows” were missiles which were a long-range weapon for ancient generals. Such “arrows” will be launched against the latter-day nations of the Israelite tribe of Joseph during a “latter day” attack (Genesis 49:22-23). Joseph’s tribes will be a “brother” alliance of a single great nation and a company (or commonwealth) of nations which will jointly bear the name of Isaac” upon them. The USA and the British Commonwealth fulfill this prophecy and they are known as the “Anglo-Saxon” nations (“Saxon” being a Latinized form of the word “Isaac”). Such precise fulfillment of biblical prophecies written down thousands of years ago confirm that an Eternal, Creator Being authored the Bible and that he is making sure all his prophecies get fulfilled at the end of our age.
Ezekiel 39:3 prophesies that at least some of the “bows and arrows” (modern ballistic and cruise missiles) fired by the Russian-Chinese-Iranian alliance won’t work because God said he will intervene to make sure they malfunction (or the prophecy could also be fulfilled by sophisticated defensive armaments and actions by attacked western forces).
I don’t want to leave you with the impression that the Russian-Chinese-Iranian alliance will be an unbeatable foe. Ezekiel 38-39 does prophesy that their alliance will lose World War III, but only due to Divine intervention. I also don’t want to leave you with the impression that this attack could come next week or next month. It is my view that World War III, prophesied about in Ezekiel 38 and other biblical prophecies about the latter-days) will not occur until after the ministry and death of the Two Witnesses (see Revelation 11). For more information on the sequence and specifics of latter-day biblical prophecies, I refer you to my articles (“What Ezekiel 38-39 Reveals about a Future World War III” and “The Two Witnesses”) available for free at this website at the “Articles” link.
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20080109/95829755.html
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,318265,00.html
http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2007Dec05/0,4670,RussiaNavy,00.html
