International Business Times quotes VP and Scowcroft Center Director Barry Pavel on why terrorist attacks in Europe have been deadlier than those in the United States:
Barry Pavel, director of the Atlantic Council’s Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security, said there’s no single reason for the discrepancy between the U.S. and European Union numbers. There are several different factors at play, he said, one of them being geographical distance.
“[The U.S. is] farther from the cauldron where a lot of the extremists are being incubated and trained and otherwise preparing for being recruited to commit terrorist acts,” he said. “The fulcrum for most of the extremism we’re discussing is the Middle East, and EU is a lot closer and probably, in many ways, easier to get to than the U.S.”