Cynical is right. This is not so much an issue of good vs. bad,
IMHO, but of cost vs. benefit. Whether nationality-based or other
hacking is a good thing or a bad thing perhaps depends on your
perspective (and defenses).
State sponsored information terrorists have to be encouraged by
our large number of weakly protected hosts and networks. Poor
monitoring, smurfable border routers, NOCs with no authority or
ability to implement ad-hoc filtering, sales sites running IIS...
On the other hand only a serious attack is going to motivate
political and economic interests to protect themselves.
The Internet today looks a lot like Europe before WWI with some
nations developing tank and rocket offenses (them) while others
are complacent with their cavalry-based defenses (us).
What defenses do NANOG operators have against well funded extra-national
attacks?