As President Joe Biden and his top cybersecurity minds convened in the Situation Room Wednesday, their agenda was all about somehow outsmarting cybercriminal minds — and their powerful protector — in Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

Most assumed their top problem was the week’s new cyber ransomware holdup by Russia-based criminals of 1,500 Western companies that ran supermarkets, pharmacies and even railroads in the United States, Europe and Asia.

But no. The same Russia-based cybercriminals, who are called REvil (a cyber shorthand for “ransom evil”), had just brazenly struck again, that very day. They had just targeted and posted on their website — which has an in-your-face name of “The Happy Blog” — documents from a Florida contractor with the high-tech name of HX5 that provides technology for space launches and weaponry to the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force and NASA. Not to shut them all down; just to show they could.

In 1934, the new FBI’s first director saw that Chicago’s crime commission got a world of attention by simply labeling Al Capone “a public enemy.” President J. Edgar Hoover, never one to be outdone in self-promotion, created a list of the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted Fugitives and called bank robber John Dillinger “Public Enemy No. 1.”

Suddenly America was fixated on this Public Enemy. Dillinger was spotted, shot and killed. His successors (“Baby Face” Nelson, “Pretty Boy” Floyd, “Machine Gun” Kelly and of course Bonnie and Clyde) came to similar fates.

Here’s where the Biden Situation Room brain trust ought to rethink and recalibrate Hoover’s Public Enemy No. 1. All who are farsighted can clearly see that ahead of us — and rushing toward us — is a fate we cannot allow to happen: a potential cybercriminal paralysis. It can take many forms; they range from dreadful to worse. Automakers are planning for an all-electric future. General Motors’ goal is to end production of gas and diesel cars by 2035. A world where cybercriminals can shut down a nation’s electrical grid, bringing a region or even a nation to a standstill, must be prevented.

Putin must understand that from this point on, the cybercrimes must stop. Yet he must also understand that Putin and Russia can be a welcome part of the global solution. And that good relations can happen, if that happens.

But Putin must also be told, firmly but privately, that — as a last resort — a world of major allies are prepared to spotlight him and Russia as THE problem. He must be told that the United States. Britain, the European Union, Japan, Australia and more are prepared to declare Putin’s Russia Global Cyber-Enemy No. 1, and make it stick.

Putin will get it: Russia’s global trade and global capital sources will suddenly be shutting down. But he must also know that dire option need not be. Our world will be better with Putin’s Russia as a major partner in our solution to end cybercrime.

Our world will be better off with no person, and no nation, being Global Enemy No. 1.

Martin Schram is an op-ed columnist for Tribune News Service.