CUSUR Analytic Sections and the US-Ukraine “Working Group” Concept
CUSUR will make the establishment of its envisioned “analytic sectors” a priority in Summer 2008. It hopes to have institutional “coverage” of four "areas of interest" for CUSUR [Economic, Humanitarian, Diplomatic and Security] by the end of the year. In review, the four designated sectors will be:
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 Exchanges, Academic Exchanges, NGO Development, Mass Media Development
Diplomatic Affairs: [US-UA] GUAM/ Policy Cooperation, Visegrad Group/ Policy Cooperation, European Union/ Policy Cooperation, NATO/ Policy Cooperation
Each “sector” will eventually have a head of station and an information officer.
The first task of the Center’s analysts will be to organize and provide material for the informational centerpiece of CUSUR: its envisioned 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].
The second, longer term, task of CUSUR’s analytic sectors will be to implement the “US-Ukraine Working Group” concept. 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. The Group will 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. The “experts” will be asked to jointly write a series of “occasional papers” to identify “major issues” impacting on US-Ukrainian relations; they will also be asked to attend a once a year “US-UA Leadership Summit” to discuss and “anticipate” such issues for the upcoming year. [The first such Summit is projected for January 2009 in Boulder, Colorado].