“Another significant irritant,” Perrilloux said, “is the application of human rights laws” toward U.S. allies in the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates. 

In Washington, the threat feels remote. It does not in Eastern Europe. Baltic nations, fearing war, have already begun preparing for it. So has Sweden: “We see Russian intelligence operations in Sweden — we can’t interpret this in any other way — as preparation for military operations against Sweden,” a Swedish security official announced in March.

In May, Finland’s defense ministry sent letters to 900,000 citizens — one-sixth of the population — telling them to prepare for conscription in case of a “crisis situation.” Lithuania has reinstituted military conscription. Poland, in June, appointed a general who would take over as military commander in case of war.

It shouldn’t take the drone-killing of a U.S. citizen to cause a mainstream discussion of how reckless these killings are. But it does. That, by itself, should cause a serious examination of the mindset behind all of this.

The long read: Safely ensconced behind flickering computer screens, military personnel are waging war in lands thousands of miles away. But is there a hidden human cost to remote-controlled combat?

The Kremlin’s denial that Russian soldiers are fighting in Ukraine has left families of dead servicemen searching for truth and justice.