It embodied a bargain. The majority of states would not acquire nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, the nuclear states would negotiate nuclear disarmament. The nuclear weapon states never kept their side of the bargain. They moved their nuclear weapon tests underground, but did nothing to reduce their number.
Nuclear disarmament is as distant as ever.
Even if the second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty is ratified by Russia, the United States and Russia will still retain some 20,000 nuclear warheads in the year 2007, if 'hedges' and spares are included. The nuclear weapons powers have successfully sold the story that even if further nuclear disarmament does take place, it would have to be stretched out over decades. That simply is not true. With only a small investment in new facilities, the whole world stock of nuclear weapons could be dismantled in seven years. The United States, France, Britain, and Russia have very little interest in the views of the non-nuclear weapon states.