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For several decades, arms control has been at the center of global efforts to restrain the spread of nuclear weapons. The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) has been, in a number of respects, a notable success. It has become nearly universal in application, having gained the accession of nearly every state in the international system. It is granted at least some (if not most) of the credit for limiting nuclear proliferation to a level well below that forecast in the earlier decades of the nuclear age. It has facilitated the acceptance of an international nuclear order that is starkly discriminatory, allowing five states a legally codified status as possessors of nuclear weapons while denying those weapons to all other signatories. It has created a legal and normative basis for opposing the spread of nuclear weapons. For most of its existence, it has been the only arms control regime that includes an international organization (the International Atomic Energy Agency) among its mechanisms of inspection and verification. In 1995, after a quarter century of being in force, the parties to the treaty extended the NPT indefinitely, on the presumption that its value had been demonstrated and that it should be in place permanently as a barrier to further nuclear proliferation. Here then, is a well-established arms control regime of indefinite duration and nearly universal participation that is widely regarded as the foundation for international efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. Viewed in this light, the NPT might be regarded as an unquestioned feature of the international landscape, as a prized instrument for those many states that oppose nuclear proliferation.