MERE POSSESSION IS SUFFICIENT FOR DETERRENCE. A Contractarian Defense of Nuclear Deterrence. Christopher W. Morris. Ethics, Vol. 95, No. 3, Special Issue Symposium on Ethics and Nuclear Deterrence (Apr, 1985), pp. 479-496. Published by The University of Chicago Press Stable URL http://www.jstor.org/stable/2381033 A variant on this suggestion is the idea that we should retain some nuclear weapons while refraining from threatening, sincerely or insincerely, to use them. It might be argued that our mere possession of them would suffice to deter Soviet nuclear attack even if we did not explicitly threaten to retaliate' For instance, Israel (it is widely believed) possesses some nuclear weapons. It need not explicitly threaten its adversaries mere possession of such weapons maybe sufficient deterrent against a repetition of 1973.
