Social disengagement and being ripe to be radicalised are important in inducing terrorism, but there certainly is a correlation between (under)-developing societies and the foothold that politically-driven Islamic fundamentalism gains in those societies. Islam, being a religion with all the gravitas of a huge cult of oppressive, brain-washing nonsense preys on the kind of people for whom a free, prosperous, democratic, egalitarian society is a long way off.
But as we've seen this week with Charlie Hebdo, they adopt a playground bully approach to Western society too. At school the playground bully usually isn't tougher than every kid in the school, so he selects his victims carefully by focusing on the ones he can intimidate. Similarly, Islamic jingoists won't be able to take on nations like France , the UK and the USA in a full scale war, so they target smaller pockets of a nation, like the Charlie Hebdo offices in France , or buses and tubes in England , or skyscrapers in the USA
Sadly, Western civilisation is very timid when it comes to standing up to Islamic thugs. One occasionally hears torpid platitudes about 'Being tough not on Islam but on Islamic fundamentalism' but there is a very real reason why the establishment won't get as tough with Islam as it needs to - it's because tough measures would bring about radical reactions in the currently more moderate Muslims, with many being edged towards a tipping point. In other words, if politicians respond to even semi-radical Islam with the contempt it deserves they would turn lots more young Muslim men towards semi-radical and radical Islam. As history shows, to assert that you are for or against something very often drives scores of radicals in the opposite direction, and it's with that fear that politicians deliberately adopt a very circumspect approach towards the influence of radical Islam.
