The Soviet Union had a better system of deal with ‘undesireables’ (meaning people who held the government accountable), as they required EXIT VISAS before one could leave. So you apply, and if it’s turned down (as usually happens), you lose - but no huge show of it, just a letter in the mail.
But in the US, I guess, we wait until the ‘Enemy of the State’, Scott Ritter in this case, has BOARDED THE PLANE, and then make a big show of forcibly removing him from the plane - just to rub salt into the decision that he must not be allowed to leave the US as he is too dangerous of a dissident.
Has less to do with traveling abroad than where he is traveling to.