  I discuss the conditions under which the application of chiral perturbation
theory to the NN potential gives reliable results for NN scattering phase
shifts. ChiPT also yields a convergent expansion for the deuteron charge
operator. For cutoffs < 1 GeV, this produces precise predictions for
deuterium's quadrupole and charge form factors in the range Q^2 < 0.25 GeV^2.
