The answer came from the economic front. Confronted with ever-growing de¬mand, oil producers let prices rise to $150 a barrel, sometimes peaking up to $200, all the while using their economic power to bargain for other political or symbolic gains such as hosting UN meetings, or guaranteeing the stability of their current rulers. Industrialized countries did not respond as expected. It seemed the high cost of oil hurt them somewhat less than it did emerging economies, whose competitiveness was reduced. They let inflation rise somewhat. They passed some energy-saving laws, boosted alternative sources of energy – renewables, but above all current and future-generation nuclear power -, and increased funding for all research related to energy (and other resources) production, distribution or efficiency. And they did not (to say the least) discourage the growing number of consumer campaigns against goods coming from countries with little or no safety or environmental controls (such as China or India…), resulting in several environmentally-motivated trade tariffs or outright bans.

The first countries to be hurt were the poorest of all, but all third-world and emerging economies felt the pressure. It was not like a sudden crisis, althou¬gh several Asian stock-markets slumped rather rapidly, but more like if a much lower cap had been imposed on growth rates that had previously been close to double digits. Countries who had been building up their infrastructure based on high long-term growth assumptions began to worry. In this context, the horrible bombings that took place during the 2012 London Olympics, killing 4,000 people despite the stringent security measures that had made people joke about it being «the most watched event in the history of the world» did not come as a huge surprise – except, perhaps, for the intelligence community. The groups that claimed the attacks was of unknown origin, the technology was clearly more advanced than in other recent events («low-inten¬sity» terrorism having become a fact of life in much of he world), and they were never heard of again afterwards…