Towards a perturbative theory of nuclear forces

We show that an expansion of nuclear forces about the chiral limit is formally consistent and is equivalent to KSW power counting in the ¹S ₀ channel and Weinberg power counting in the ³S ₁- ³D ₁ coupled channels. Numerical evidence suggests that this expansion converges. The feasibility of making contact between nuclear physics and lattice-QCD simulations is discussed.