Thomas Wilberding's List: Russia/ Soviet Union

In a 2006 speech entitled “The Collapse of an Empire: Lessons for Modern  Russia,” Yegor Gaidar, a deputy prime minister of Russia in the early 1990s,  noted that “the timeline of the collapse of the Soviet Union can be traced to  Sept. 13, 1985. On this date, Sheikh Ahmed Zaki Yamani, the minister of oil of  Saudi Arabia, declared that the monarchy had decided to alter its oil policy  radically. The Saudis stopped protecting oil prices, and Saudi Arabia quickly  regained its share in the world market.

“During the next six months,” added Gaidar, “oil production in Saudi Arabia  increased fourfold, while oil prices collapsed by approximately the same amount  in real terms. As a result, the Soviet Union lost approximately $20 billion per  year, money without which the country simply could not survive.”