Many media articles have commented on the growing fears in the Western world about the reemergence of an anti-American, anti-Western Russia under Vladimir Putin. Russian domination of Europe’s energy supplies and the thinly-disguised “hit” of a Russian citizen living in Britain with a highly-sophisticated polonium isotope are cases in point. Russia’s alliance with China and its status as the supplier of nuclear equipment and conventional weaponry to Iran also fit this pattern.
It is not hard to understand Russia’s reemergence as an anti-Western nation if you look at it from Russia’s viewpoint. When the Soviet Union collapsed, any sense of “order” deteriorated as predatory capitalists seemed to carve up Russia’s resources for themselves. Putin has been immensely popular in Russia for restoring a sense of order in Russia and seizing Russia’s resources and destiny out of the hands of the predatory capitalists. NATO took advantage of Russian weakness to extend its member nations right up to the Russian border as old Warsaw Pact nations in Eastern Europe and the Baltics eagerly aligned with the West. Now the USA is proposing to place anti-ballistic missiles (ABMs )in Poland and the Czech Republic to stop any Iranian nuclear missiles which might be fired at NATO nations in the future. A look at a globe confirms that these are logical places to locate a Western ABM system intended to intercept Iranian missiles, but Russia sees this as a further NATO action against Russia. Russia is now striking back and “sending the West a message.”
An April 29, 2007 AP story by Douglas Birch (reprinted in the Sioux Falls Argus-Leader) detailed Russia’s growing hostility to the West. The article, entitled “Putin, Russia Start to Flex Muscles,” stated that “Putin…has become more defiant of international pressure and more willing to challenge the United States and Europe,” and added “the world appears to be entering a new period of accusation and acrimony in East-West relations–with fresh fractures…resembling those that marked the Cold War.” Some are aware of the growing danger posed by an angry Russia awash in new energy riches which can enable the purchase of many new weapons. The article also noted: “Western critics warn the Kremlin’s new assertiveness reflects renewed imperial ambitions and threatens its neighbors.”
Russia recently served notice that it has developed new unconventional warfare techniques with which it could attack the Western nations. The conflict grew out of rather innocuous decision by Estonia’s government to move a memorial honoring Russian war dead. Russia took offense at this and a cyberattack was launched against Estonian websites. A May 17, 2007 report in The Guardian (accessible at www.guardian.co.uk) commented on the “three week wave of massive cyber-attacks” against little Estonia, which was “causing alarm across the western alliance, with NATO urgently examining the offensive and its implications. The obvious “implications” are that Russia could do the same thing against any other Western nation whenever it chooses to do so in the future. This has NATO worried…justifiably.
The Guardian article quoted an editor of an Estonian newspaper, Merit Kopli, as stating: “The Cyber-attacks are from Russia. there is no question.” The Economist magazine’s May 12, 2007 issue, in an article entitled “A Cyber-riot,” stated that: “The Estonians say that some of the earliest salvoes came from computers linked to the Russian government.” To protect it’s domestic internet users and economy from the cyber-attacks, Estonia had to cut itself off from the global internet and limit website use to only domestic users. In a global economy, Estonia found itself considerably isolated from international commerce.
Russia served notice that it can cripple Western nations by an attack of “bytes” as well as one with “bullets.” In the Guardian article, a Finnish expert named Helsingin Sanomat, is quoted as saying: “that the Kremlin could inflict much more serious cyber-damage if it chooses to.” The cyber-attack against Estonia may be just a taste of what Russian techno-warriors can do to foreign nations.
The above is further evidence that the prophecy of Ezekiel 38 in the Bible is being propelled toward fulfillment. That prophecy foretells that in the latter days, Russia will lead a coordinated military attack against the nations of the Western World led by the USA and NATO. A crippling cyber-attack will likely occur right at the beginning stage of that future attack, given the capacities Russia has just demonstrated. Many people think the so-called “lost ten tribes of Israel” disappeared or were abandoned by God. Not true. Hosea 1:10 prophesied that after God sent the ten tribes into exile from the Promised Land (circa 721 BC), he would multiply their populations immensely The Jewish historian, Josephus, acknowledged that the ten tribes had grown into an “immense multitude” by the 1st century AD (Antiquities, XI, V, 2), and that they lived “beyond Euphrates” in what was then the empire of Parthia. Eight centuries after their exile, the ten tribes had grown immensely in size and power and their borders were known to contemporary writers.
The world ignores biblical prophecy at its own peril. My series of books on the fascinating but overlooked history of the ten tribes documents that they are now found among the great nations of the Western world. Just as the Jews are called “Judah” in the Bible, the ten tribes are called “Israel.” It is the nations of “Israel” (the ten tribes) which are the target of Ezekiel 38’s Russian-Chinese-Iranian attack in the latter days of this age. Your life is going to be dramatically affected by this event whether you know about it or not and whether you believe in biblical prophecy or not. God’s will is going to be fulfilled. If you want to know what biblical prophecy reveals about what is going to come to pass among today’s nations in future years, you need to educate yourself about where the ten tribes are now located and what the Bible foretells will be their fate.
Expect the Russian bear to continue to growl more aggressively at the Western world. A bear in the wild gives such growling threat warnings before it attacks. The attack is only a matter of years away. The Bible doesn’t “set dates” for this event and neither do I, but the bear is giving unmistakable threat warnings already.
Steven Collins
May 18, 2007
