All of Europe Is a Battleground Against Terrorism

Daniel R. DePetris

Security, Europe

The carnage in Brussels will extend above and beyond the men and women who were killed.

There is no way to sugarcoat it: the European continent, long considered one of the most prosperous, safe and multicultural regions of the world, is effectively a battlefield in the war against international terrorism.

Less than four months after eleven attackers perpetrated the worst act of violence on French soil since World War II, France's Belgian neighbor experienced a nightmare of their own during the morning rush hour on March 22. Strapped with explosive belts and reportedly carrying Kalashnikov rifles, as many as four men who are supposedly members of the Islamic State conducted three orchestrated strikes on two locations that were packed with travelers from around the world. Two suicide bombings in one of the world’s busiest airports turned the check-in counters into a scene of immense destruction, while a separate suicide bombing at a metro line in the Maelbeek district shut down the transportation system. When the grisly scene was over, more than thirty people were killed and the entire city of Brussels was on lockdown.

The two terrorist attacks in Brussels, coming so soon after the massacre in Paris last November, shook the European political establishment to its very core. EU Foreign Affairs commissioner Frederica Mogherini teared up during brief remarks to the press. Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi called it a deliberate attack on the very heart of Europe. And French Prime Minister Manuel Valls simply declared “we are at war.”