Meanwhile Russia is actively targeting political systems worldwide through social media and misinformation while also stockpiling latent backdoors and probably more.
Sounds like what every big player is doing for centuries.
>while also stockpiling latent backdoors and probably more
Sounds like what every big player is doing for at least a couple decades, except for the US which does this since early 90s while having much wider reach (a lot of the infrastructure and most software/hardware companies with irreplaceable products are within US jurisdiction).
>Stuxnet was a targeted attack which accomplished a defensive goal
Stuxnet was deployed outside the US or Israel (where it was created) to destroy the foreign infrastructure. If you're going to call that defensive or preemptive, any attack on the US or Israel infrastructure can be justified as such by the attacker as well.
This is traditionally an internal matter.
> Sounds like what every big player is doing
Perhaps, but I need citations before I can argue the case
>> any attack on the US or Israel infrastructure can be justified as such by the attacker as well.
Not really, this was to stall the Iranian nuclear program, Israel and the US is already a nuclear power. Any attack on our infrastructure would be solely to cause harm to noncombatants.