president putin has raised the spectre of the use of nuclear weapons, saying he's putting russia's nuclear forces on high alert. let's take a moment to look at the history of the nuclear arms race. with one announcement, vladimir putin left the world asking, "would he? " i'm ordering the minister of defence and the chief of the general staff to put the strategic nuclear forces on special alert. russia has the biggest nuclear arsenal in the world, and putin wouldn't be the first leader to give the order. in 1945, the us dropped two nuclear weapons onjapan. they effectively ended the second world war and killed over 100,000 people in 1949. the soviet union tested a bomb at this test site in what is now kazakhstan, then in 1962. the cuban missile crisis almost brought nuclear war between the us and russia,