Dan O’Brien: Suddenly, we are living in a world where risk is everywhere

International conflicts earlier this century hardly registered at all with the Irish economy. But with energy prices driving inflation and food prices rising even before the outbreak of war in Ukraine, it’s different this time

A US soldier walking past ‘Down Bush’ anti-US graffiti in Tikrit in Iraq in 2003. There was much debate about how the toppling of Saddam Hussein could destabilise or remake the entire Middle East region.