One fact that is so often overlooked by the eschatologist and second coming enthusiasts, is the means by which antichrist succeeds in completely taking over the world. His means are unique in every way. Unlike all dictators and despots before him who tried and failed, he manages to pull it off. He succeeds where others have failed because his approach is entirely different. Every want to be dictator or ruler prior to antichrist tried to conquer and rule by one means, and it always failed. The method always employed in times past was warfare. My force is bigger than your force so I'm in charge. >From Antiochus Epiphanes to Adolph Hitler warfare has been the primary tool of the despot. Antichrist breaks the trend and thereby breaks the backs of the nations. In the very end he leads the entire world into the greatest and most futile of all battles, but in the beginning he uses only one single element to bring the world into submission and that is, the economy. Rev.13:7 It is common today to hear America referred to as a superpower. This terminology is pompous at best, but what is worse is the prevalent attitude that we've got it made and we know it. We're the big boy on the block and were strutting our stuff while the rest of the world goes on thinking we're just a big bully. The result of this attitude is a deep preoccupation with our own affairs and the influences we are able to wield throughout the rest of the world. All the time we spend on our own position in the world has kept most Americans completely in the dark, while right under their noses a world empire is being birthed that dwarfs anything that has ever come before it, including the United States. The EU, born in the early fifties as a means of enjoining labor forces throughout Europe, has steadily grown unnoticed by most of America. The Union even without the fifteen new nations that are joining through ratification at this very moment comprises the largest economic block of countries that has ever existed in the history of the world. How many Americans know this? The answer is sadly almost none. What's worse is they don't seem to care. The European Union already has three times the gross national product of the United States. It controls almost fifty percent of the worlds shipping, and already has a dollar that is more stable than ours, and is trending toward becoming the world standard. The Union is in every way as technically advanced as the United States, and in some ways even exceeds it. If all the countries now joining can successfully ratify the constitution that is now being presented to them, then the EU will essentially become the United States of Europe by late in the year two thousand and six. Nations are literally clamoring to join the Union while America is involved with its own affairs. We of course take comfort in NATO as we have for over fifty years now. But the chances of America coming directly under the authority of the Union seem about as remote as pigs flying, unless of course, if we have no choice