A member loyal to the Islamic State militant group in Raqqa, Syria. Reuters Security and political risks have the potential to upset the global economic status quo.

The likeliness of these risks, however, as well as the degree to which they can shake things up, varies greatly.

Taking that into account, the Economist Intelligence Unit put together a list of the top five "risk scenarios" that "might substantially change the business operating environment over the coming two years."

Scenarios were ranked according to their "risk intensity score" — or the product of the probability of the risk occurring and the impact of that risk. The highest possible score is 25.

Check out the five most intense below.