OUR PICKSPreparing for Russian Cyberattacks | Cybersecurity Assistance for Small Businesses | Global Health Security Priorities, and more

What Americans Should Do to Prepare for Russian Cyberattacks  (Rachel Gutman, The Atlantic)
Russians have elevated patriotic hacking to an “art form.” Americans may feel the effects.

U.S. Drops Name of Trump’s ‘China Initiative’ After Criticism  (AP / VOA News)
The Justice Department is scrapping the name of a Trump-era initiative that was aimed at cracking down on economic espionage by Beijing but was criticized as unfairly targeting Chinese professors at American colleges because of their ethnicity.
The decision to abandon the China Initiative, announced Wednesday by the department’s top national security official, followed a monthslong review undertaken after charges that the program chilled academic collaboration and contributed to anti-Asian bias. The department also endured high-profile setbacks in individual criminal prosecutions that resulted in the last year in the dismissal of multiple criminal cases against academic researchers.

Three Men Plead Guilty in Plot to Attack U.S. Power Grids  (VOA News)
The U.S. Justice Department said Wednesday that three men pleaded guilty to crimes linked to plans to attack power grids in the U.S. to promote white supremacist ideology.
“These three defendants admitted to engaging in a disturbing plot, in furtherance of white supremacist ideology, to attack energy facilities in order to damage the economy and stoke division in our country,” Assistant Attorney General for National Security Matthew G. Olsen said in a statement.

Three Urgent Priorities for the U.S. National Security Council to Strengthen Global Health Security and Biodefense  (Arush Lal, STAT)
In a planned transition, Beth Cameron, the Biden administration’s top official for global health security and biodefense, leaves her post at the White House National Security Council this month. After more than a decade spearheading biosecurity and pandemic preparedness, she will be replaced by U.S. global malaria coordinator Raj Panjabi — a primary care physician who has been a stalwart advocate for community-based health care programs as the former CEO of Last Mile Health.
Panjabi’s appointment could signal a potential shift in U.S. health security policy.

Great-Power Competition Comes for Latin America  (Adam Isacson, War on the Rocks)
In early February, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez (and the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee for the Western Hemisphere, Marco Rubio), introduced legislation designed to counter “the growing meddling of Russia and China in Latin America and the Caribbean.” Unfortunately, beyond some language on human rights and civilian defense management, the Western Hemisphere Security Strategy Act strikingly resembles the U.S. approach during the Cold War, the last time that great-power competition guided U.S. foreign policy in the Western Hemisphere. The bill’s response to “the harmful and malign influence” of China and Russia hinges on bolstering longstanding State and Defense Department military and police aid programs. Making no mention of economic assistance, trade ties, civil society, or democracy promotion, the bill covers only a small piece of what renewed engagement should entail. A “security first” response was insufficient and harmful during the Cold War, and it is absolutely not enough today.

Lawmakers Introduce Bill to Give Small Businesses More Cybersecurity Assistance  (HSToday)
While the enacted FY2021 Appropriations bill appropriated funding for the Cybersecurity Assistance Pilot Program, it was never authorized.

The Controversial China Initiative Is Ending, and Researchers Are Relieved  (Natasha Gilbert and Max Kozlov, Scientific American)
The U.S. Department of Justice announced major changes to the espionage-protection program, but scientists hope for further acknowledgment of the damage done.

How Congress Can Ensure CHIPS Act Funding Advances National Security Interests  (Emily Kilcrease and Sarah Stewart, Lawfare)
As Congress moves toward conference consideration of major China-related legislation, funding for domestic semiconductor manufacturing will feature prominently. And rightly so, as semiconductors, the brains of the modern world, support nearly every element of the 21st century economy. Given their importance, securing the United States’ supply of these chips is an economic and national security imperative. But as Congress leans into industrial policy, it has a responsibility to ensure that taxpayer dollars are spent strategically to advance U.S. interests, not amounting to a blank check untethered to U.S. strategic objectives. CHIPS Act investment must tilt the geopolitical scales strongly toward the U.S. side and, along with other proposals under consideration, advance U.S. leadership in the chips race vis-a-vis China.