Looking at the defense buildup, Reed questions whether the United States can reach its tricentennial. In the twelve years since Brezhnev and Kosygin took over in the Soviet Union, the Soviets have allocated ever growing resources to defense. That country has undergone the largest peacetime military buildup since the German rearmament of the 1930s. Meanwhile, the U.S. Air Force‘s aircraft inventory is down. Soon the Soviets will be twice as powerful as the U.S. Reed talks about the Cuban Missile Crisis, the strategic triad and triad deterrence, the need to replace U.S. bombers, aircraft of the 1950s, and the U.S. entry into World War I.