Saudi Arabia and its oil policy are thought to have contributed to the downfall of Soviet Communism in the late 1980s and early 1990. Saudi Arabia helped to finance not just the Afghan Mujahideen but also non-Muslim anti-communists. It also seriously harmed the Soviet Communist cause by stabilizing oil prices "throughout the 1980s, just when the Russians were desperate to sell energy in order to keep up with huge hikes in American military spending."