Instead, Russia has deployed disinformation techniques as part of its hybrid warfare. As well as attempts to influence the 2016 US election, they’ve also been honed in Sub-Saharan Africa recently. “Russia’s online and offline influence campaigns have acted as an accelerant, driving polarization and cementing the authority of often outwardly pro-Russian coup leaders,” according to a report by the Microsoft Threat Analysis Center.

The cost of conflict to the global economy this year is on course to be the highest since the end of World War II, research from Bloomberg Economics shows, as the post-war peace dividend that allowed countries to focus resources on healthcare and education at the expense of defense appears to be fraying.

“The hope is that the current surge in conflict is driven by one-off factors that are painful, but not the start of a trend,” Bloomberg economists Alexander Isakov, Gerard DiPippo and Ziad Daoud said in the report. “If that’s not the case, and there are structural factors at work — like the end of America’s unipolar moment — conflict, and its economic costs, will continue to rise.”

One of the resources being siphoned off is attention, as officials around the world rush to contain conflict instead of furthering economic development.

War, instead of investment, was the main focus of Saudi Arabia’s recent flagship investment conference. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who sees a connection between the fighting in Ukraine and Gaza, has urged his diplomats to spend their time avoiding escalation, according to two people familiar with his thinking.

For Singaporean Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan, who spoke at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in his country last month, it’s the “tripwires” in Taiwan and the South China Sea that are the focus of his concerns, with major powers lining up on either side just as they are in Ukraine and Gaza.

“The last time that happened globally was the First World War,” he said. 

Here are some of the other risks worrying officials:

The Balkans

Ukrainian officials are concerned that support for their fight against Russia may be compromised because the US is stretched by deployments in the Middle East as well as its continued vigilance over Taiwan.