There was a time when Russia and China were hacking each other and interfering in politics. A couple of years ago, they signed 38 agreements, one of them being an agreement to stop hacking for political influence. I doubt that either of them really believed the other would stop doing that, but they did sign an agreement.
So when Marco Rubio says "Partnering with Putin on a 'Cyber Security Unit' is akin to partnering with Assad on a 'Chemical Weapons Unit.' We have no quarrel with Russia or the Russian people. Problem is with Putin & his oppression, war crimes & interference in our elections." he is only stating what to him is the obvious - Russia is not going to change and we can't trust them. I'm sure that was what China thought when they made their series of agreements, but the Russians seem to have behaved themselves since then.
After China said it would cut back on hacking U.S. businesses, they did two things (1) they cut back on exfiltrating data after they hacked into businesses. They still hacked them, and will have the capability to extract data if needed. (2) they moved their offensive collection efforts under a higher level organization with much better capabilities. That would be one that would not get caught as often as the Army klutzes who were not very good at hiding their work. So, do we think those are good things or bad? I think they are normal in the world of cyber security where offensive operations are often hidden and seldom acknowledged.
So, these kinds of agreements may not have the desired result - actually changing the behavior in a way that stops hacking - they may produce some results that are an incremental change towards a better environment between two countries. There is nothing wrong with that, but in a rush to criticize before thinking, we might be throwing out the baby with the bath water.
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