But Belarus got its man. And other countries will wonder whether they can pull off a similar stunt—and maybe not only with their own exiled citizens. Russia is a big country, and many flights pass through its airspace. The Belarus ruse leaves little doubt that President Vladimir Putin could effortlessly concoct an excuse to ground a plane carrying the Americans he considers enemies. These could include former U.S. Ambassador Michael McFaul, former National Security Adviser John Bolton, or the Putin critic Bill Browder, should they be foolish enough to fly from (say) New York to Delhi, or Los Angeles to Singapore, without making sure their flight path doesn’t cross Siberia or graze the Russian Far East. Byerly noted that passenger-name data are shared with overflight countries. Russia, China, or Iran could just wait for a McFaul, a Guo Wengui, or a Salman Rushdie to pop up, then click send on a hastily written bullshit email from the Asian Dawn Movement, the New Provo Front, or some other terrorist group of their choice. While the plane is on the ground, why not scan everyone’s passport, like a random sobriety check on the highway? Maybe they’d get lucky. The passport-check scenario, minus the email, could already happen. Planes make unscheduled stops all the time, for mundane reasons including mechanical woes. Those stops can end badly now—and they surely would if any of those named above were stopped in the wrong country, even for innocent reasons. (Think of the famous “Marge vs. the Monorail” episode of The Simpsons, in which the villain’s getaway flight to Tahiti stops unexpectedly in a town he defrauded before Springfield, and angry locals raid the plane.) No Belarussian dissident would risk transiting the country by train—on a strange journey, say, from Milan to Minsk, en route to Vilnius. But flying induces a kind of hypnosis, a delusion of security.