So, had to re-read that article just in case there was new information, but even if all the speculation is true (probably) this does not support the claim that USA, Israel, Saudi Arabia, UK and France are the most aggressive cyber-combatants. Stuxnet was a targeted attack which accomplished a defensive goal. It is also unlikely that Saudi Arabia, the UK nor France had anything to do with this attack nor are there any claims of NATO support for the development of Stuxnet.

Meanwhile Russia is actively targeting political systems worldwide through social media and misinformation while also stockpiling latent backdoors and probably more.

>actively targeting political systems worldwide through X

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.

> actively targeting political systems worldwide through X >> Sounds like what every big player is doing for centuries.

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.