CUSUR and the US-Ukraine Working Group” Initiative
During 2008-9, CUSUR made the establishment of its envisioned analytic sectors” or “areas of interest for CUSUR”
[Economic, Humanitarian, Diplomatic and Security] a priority; in 2010, it took steps to provide “institutional wherewithal” to the project-including the appointment of a chair/head of secretariat and “four experts” for each sector and held its first major gathering [the Inaugural WG Dinner]. In 2011, the “experts” were provided with their “task lists” and were asked to prepare for a major gathering to “trade their valuable information with each other” [the US-Ukrainian Leadership Summit].
[Economic, Humanitarian, Diplomatic and Security] a priority; in 2010, it took steps to provide “institutional wherewithal” to the project-including the appointment of a chair/head of secretariat and “four experts” for each sector and held its first major gathering [the Inaugural WG Dinner]. In 2011, the “experts” were provided with their “task lists” and were asked to prepare for a major gathering to “trade their valuable information with each other” [the US-Ukrainian Leadership Summit].
In review, the designated sectors are:
Economic Affairs: [US-UA] Trade, Investment, Technical Assistance, Energy Issues
Security Affairs: [US-UA] Training – Defense/Intel, Coordination – Defense/Intel, Joint Operations – Defense/Intel, Organized Crime Issues
Humanitarian Affairs: [US-UA] Cultural & Academic Exchanges, NGO & Media Development, National & Religious Minorities Issues, Social Equity Issues
Diplomatic Affairs: [US-UA] GUAM/Policy Cooperation, Visegrad/Policy Cooperation, European Union/ Policy Cooperation, NATO/ Policy Cooperation
CUSUR”s analytic sectors, when operating in tandem, constitute the US-Ukraine Working Group”. The Group presently consist of 20 (5 from each area of analytic interest for CUSUR”) government, NGO and academic experts” (selected from a larger pool of specialists) from Ukraine and an equal number of counterparts from the United States.
As declared in the CUSUR finalized goal statement”, the purpose of the Group will be to: (a) monitor the existing state of relations between the US and Ukraine and (b) suggest ways and means to improve the ties.
More concretely, the experts” will be called upon to jointly write a series of occasional papers” to identify major issues” impacting on US-Ukrainian relations. At the same time, they will be asked to partake in an annual US-UA Leadership Summit”-to review” progress/regress during the year past” in the four already designated sectors plus two newly minted areas of interest: social cohesion and national identity [CUSUR will hold the first such gathering in late June 2012].
The second task of the Center”s analytic sectors will be to organize and provide material for the informational centerpiece of CUSUR-its envisioned Internet based bi-annual Journal of Ukrainian Affairs. For each issue, each sector will elicit any number of articles from known US-UA government, NGO or academic specialists in their designated field and select one such article to be printed in the given number [four articles to an issue]. Likewise, for each issue, each sector will ask the various named specialists to write reviews of recently published works in the field and select one such review to be printed in the given number [four reviews to an issue].