From the Written Statement of the Government of Malaysia to the International Court of Justice,
19 June 1995
Nuclear weapons are being used today and can be expected to be used in the future. Not that they are being detonated but that it is not a requirement of their being used. A man uses a gun when he sticks it in your ribs and demands your money. He does not need to fire the gun. And a country uses nuclear weapons when it makes known that it may launch them unless certain conditions are met, as the United States did against the Soviet Union in the Cuban Missile Crisis, against China during the Korean War, and against North Vietnam during the Vietnam War. And the very threat of retaliation that is at the heart of nuclear deterrence is a use of nuclear weapons, even if it is not the actual exploding of them.