President Trump and the United States face three immediate tests that will profoundly affect our security and that of the free world.

Hello, I'm Steve Forbes and this is What's Ahead, where you get the insights you need to better navigate these turbulent times. The three big tests we must deal with are well known, Iran, Ukraine, and Taiwan.

China, despite economic woes, is intent on replacing the U.S. as the Earth's dominant power.

It is relentlessly building up its military and attempting to expand its influence around

the world despite occasional setbacks.

Russia is determined to control Ukraine and break NATO, the core of our post-world war security

system.

That would return us to the kind of national rivalries in Europe

that led to two world wars. Iran's terrorist imperialist regime believed survival in the current

war would be a victory, enabling it to have veto power over the crucial strait of Hormuz

and eventually become the dominant power in the Middle East again, while

mercilessly spreading its diabolical religious fanaticism everywhere.

The policy implications of these tests are clear, but that doesn't guarantee that we'll pursue

them with patience and determination. Negotiations with the Mullers is a fool's game.

These fanatics will not abandon their fantastical ambitions no matter what they promise.

The bottom line is that anything less than the ultimate destruction of the government of

malignant Mullers would be a disastrous setback, showing our

adversaries and friends that we no longer have the stamina and sense of purpose to be the leader

and enforcer of a benign world order. That's why President Trump must authoritatively address

the nation behind his desk in the Oval Office on the

stakes involved. That would put the temporary rise in gas prices and the inevitable surprises

in warfare in the context of the crucially important issues at stake here.

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