The major features of the New Look included greater reliance on nuclear weapons, using the advantage the United States had over the Soviet Union in such weapons; elevation of strategic air power, the major means to deliver nuclear weapons, to a more important position (not an expansion in the number of Air Force aircraft but rather development and production of better equipment); reductions of conventional ground forces, based both on reliance on strategic and tactical nuclear weapons and the expectation that US allies would provide ground troops for their own defense; an expanded program of continental defense, which, along with strategic air power, would serve as a principal ingredient of the New Look's deterrence program; and modernization and enlargement of reserve forces, enhancing the military manpower base while reducing active duty forces.