Engineering is done in the context of constraints, cost is one constraint - and its a relatively conserved constraint. Saving labor in one area allows for more care in other areas. Especially given that labor is often not cost constrained, but skill constrained, which is less elastic.
In Iraq, JSOC operational doctrine was literally to target assassination campaigns based on 'nodal analysis' from contacts lifted from cellphones; if telegram had existed, they certainly would have used it too.
Famously, they didn't have enough Arabic translators, so Delta Force was often taking targets entirely based on reported association. They couldn't target based on language because they couldn't even tell what language locals were speaking most of the time.
That wasn't my point. My specific argument is about US operational policy on the ground in similar engagements. Based on precident, we would expect them to engage in the behavior the commentor indicts.
I dream that neither of these imperial powers - Russia or the US - will be allowed to inflict imperial violence, but I wouldn't be mistaken and assume that this military action will be any different than, say, JSOC in Iraq.
The problem is the same problem with crypto dao projects - cryptographic certainties only apply to mathematical structures; you can't validate that someone actually holds a quality until you can embed that digitally. That turns out to be very hard to do for most things.