The state of the world is again being presented in the media as uniquely unstable and near the brink of catastrophe. Some of the headlines are breathless. Since the latest round of United States (US) and Israeli strikes on Iran there have been “shock market pullbacks”, the price of oil “has rocked the global economy”, the dollar has “surged”, and the rand has been “hammered”.

Reading some of it is almost enough to make you hide your money under the bed.

The reality is quite different and in terms of global instability, the oil price, and the dollar, things are much more normal than some media reporting would have them appear.

Start with global instability and wars in the Middle East.

By the count of this newspaper, the Middle East has played host to 17 major wars since the end of World War II. Many of those extended for years and were often much graver than that currently pitting the Gulf states, Israel, and America against Iran.

These include the 1948 Arab-Israeli War (following Israel's declaration of independence, a coalition of Arab states – Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon – invaded), the 1956 Suez Crisis (Suez War) (Israel, Britain, and France invaded Egypt after it nationalised the Suez Canal), the 1962-1970 North Yemen Civil War (a major regional proxy war between royalists, backed by Saudi Arabia, and republicans backed by Egypt), the 1967 Six-Day War (a pre-emptive strike by Israel against Egypt, Jordan, and Syria, resulting in the capture of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Sinai Peninsula, and Golan Heights), the 1967-1970 War of Attrition (a limited war primarily between Egypt and Israel following the Six-Day War), the 1970-1971 Black September War (a civil war in Jordan between the Jordanian Armed Forces and the Palestine Liberation Organisation [PLO]), the 1973 Yom Kippur War (a surprise attack on Israel by a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria), the 1975-1990 Lebanese Civil War (a complex, multi-sided conflict that drew in regional powers like Israel and Syria), the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War (one of the longest and deadliest interstate wars of the 20th century), the 1982 Lebanon War (Israel invaded Lebanon to dismantle the PLO’s military presence), the 1990-1991 Gulf War (an American-led coalition expelled Iraqi forces from Kuwait following Iraq's invasion), the 2003-2011 Iraq War (an American-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein's regime and led to a prolonged insurgency), the 2006 Second Lebanon War (a 34-day conflict between Israel and Hezbollah), the 2011-2024 Syrian Civil War (a massive internal and proxy war that has displaced millions and involved global powers), the 2013-2017 war in Iraq against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq (a major international effort to defeat the Islamic State after its rapid expansion in Iraq), the 2014-plus Yemeni Civil War (a conflict between Houthi rebels and the Yemeni government), and the 2023-present Israel-Hamas War (triggered by the October 7 attacks, this conflict has expanded to multiple regional fronts including Lebanon, Yemen, and direct strikes between Israel and Iran).

As for market crashes, the Dow Jones Industrial is down 8% over a month – only now approaching the level that might be read as a correction. But over six months it is down less than 2% and over the past year it remains up over 8%.

As for the price of oil, the inflation-adjusted global average oil price has sat at a fraction over $100/barrel since 2010. Hence, as this newspaper reported yesterday, the price of oil has not been at “freak” levels for much of the current war.

And as for the American dollar, it is trading today at a discount to the levels it reached for much of the period since 2022 and, in fact, inside its moving average of the past decade-plus – and the advantage of that still stands out for the rand, which yesterday was trading more strongly than a year ago.

The Iran war is a disruptive thing and, unchecked, might yet cause great economic damage, although the advice of this newspaper has been that, on the balance of probabilities, it will not come to that (see the scenarios The Common Sense produced on the war here). But even if the war extends for many months, it still would not mark a tangential departure from what the world has faced out of the Middle East over the past 50 years.

From an investor perspective, had you cashed out at the time of each crisis, and bought back into the global economy as each crisis resolved, likely only a fraction of your capital would have survived the consequences. Had investors bought each dip, buying into the crisis, the results would have been a stupendous accumulation of wealth. There is a lesson in that: not to be too drawn into the media hype of a set of events but instead to retain a degree of detached perspective.