One would think that the signing of such a treaty would greatly limit the nuclear arms race by the USSR and the USA. Yet any graph I've seen (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bb/US_and_USSR_nuclear_stockpiles.svg/400px-US_and_USSR_nuclear_stockpiles.svg.png
) doesn't show any significant decrease in nuclear arms stockpiling. Am I missing something or was this agreement insignificant in the nuclear arms race? Thanks in advance to any responses. If you can provide a source with any response, it would be greatly appreciated.
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty was primarily about stopping new nations from getting nuclear arms, not containing existing nuclear powers.
Article VI of the NPT does say that the existing nuclear powers will "undertake to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament." You can see that this is pretty distant from asking for actual disarmament — "good faith" + "undertake to pursue negotiations" + "at an early date," etc. It is fairly toothless.
Every five years since the NPT was signed, there has been a NPT Review Conference, which is meant to allow the signatories to voice grievances or changes. Of course Article VI comes up every time. The US is always able to say, "well, we tried to do good faith reductions." And indeed, the US stockpile has mostly decreased since that time, and it has done things like removed high-yield weapons, decreased reliance on tactical weapons, etc., and the US has pursued treaties and disarmament measures. But obviously "progress" in this area is in the eye of the beholder.
