The Biden administration announced more than $80 million in funding Thursday in a push to produce more solar panels in the U.S., make solar energy available to more people, and pursue superior alternatives to the ubiquitous sparkly panels made with silicon.

The initiative, spearheaded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and known as Community solar, encompasses a variety of arrangements where renters and people who don’t control their rooftops can still get their electricity from solar power. Two weeks ago, Vice President Kamala Harris announced what the administration said was the largest community solar effort ever in the United States.

Now it is set to spend $52 million on 19 solar projects across a dozen states, including $10 million from the infrastructure law, as well as $30 million on technologies that will help integrate solar electricity into the grid.

The DOE also selected 25 teams to participate in a $10 million competition designed to fast-track the efforts of solar developers working on community solar projects.

The Inflation Reduction Act already offers incentives to build large solar generation projects, such as renewable energy tax credits. But Ali Zaidi, White House national climate adviser, said the new money focuses on meeting the nation’s climate goals in a way that benefits more communities.

“It’s lifting up our workers and our communities. And that’s, I think, what really excites us about this work,” Zaidi said. “It’s a chance not just to tackle the climate crisis, but to bring economic opportunity to every zip code of America.”

The investments will help people save on their electricity bills and make the electricity grid more reliable, secure, and resilient in the face of a changing climate, said Becca Jones-Albertus, director of the energy department’s Solar Energy Technologies Office.

Jones-Albertus said she’s particularly excited about the support for community solar projects, since half of Americans don’t live in a situation where they can buy their own solar and put in on the roof.

Michael Jung, executive director of the ICF Climate Center agreed. “Community solar can help address equity concerns, as most current rooftop solar panels benefit owners of single-family homes,” he said.

In typical community solar projects, households can invest in or subscribe to part of a larger solar array offsite. “What we’re doing here is trying to unlock the community solar market,” Jones-Albertus said.

The U.S. has 5.3 gigawatts of installed community solar capacity currently, according to the latest estimates. The goal is that by 2025, five million households will have access to it — about three times as many as today — saving $1 billion on their electricity bills, according to Jones-Albertus.

The new funding also highlights investment in a next generation of solar technologies, intended to wring more electricity out of the same amount of solar panels. Currently only about 20% of the sun’s energy is converted to electricity in crystalline silicon solar cells, which is what most solar panels are made of. There has long been hope for higher efficiency, and today’s announcement puts some money towards developing two alternatives: perovskite and cadmium telluride (CdTe) solar cells. Zaidi said this will allow the U.S. to be “the innovation engine that tackles the climate crisis.”

Joshua Rhodes, a scientist at the University of Texas at Austin said the investment in perovskites is good news. They can be produced more cheaply than silicon and are far more tolerant of defects, he said. They can also be built into textured and curved surfaces, which opens up more applications for their use than traditional rigid panels. Most silicon is produced in China and Russia, Rhodes pointed out.

Cadmium telluride solar can be made quickly and at a low cost, but further research is needed to improve how efficient the material is at converting sunlight to electrons.

Cadmium is also toxic and people shouldn’t be exposed to it. Jones-Albertus said that in cadmium telluride solar technology, the compound is encapsulated in glass and additional protective layers.

The new funds will also help recycle solar panels and reuse rare earth elements and materials. “One of the most important ways we can make sure CdTe remains in a safe compound form is ensuring that all solar panels made in the U.S. can be reused or recycled at the end of their life cycle,” Jones-Albertus explained.

Recycling solar panels also reduces the need for mining, which damages landscapes and uses a lot of energy, in part to operate the heavy machinery. Eight of the projects in Thursday’s announcement focus on improving solar panel recycling, for a total of about $10 million.

Clean energy is a fit for every state in the country, the administration said. One solar project in Shungnak, Alaska, was able to eliminate the need to keep making electricity by burning diesel fuel, a method sometimes used in remote communities that is not healthy for people and contributes to climate change.

“Alaska is not a place that folks often think of when they think about solar, but this energy can be an economic and affordable resource in all parts of the country,” said Jones-Albertus.
…

your ad here

It’s April 22, 2027, and 72 hours into a first-strike Chinese attack on Taiwan and the U.S. military response. Already, the toll on all sides is staggering.

It was a war game, but one with a serious purpose and high-profile players: members of the House select committee on China. The conflict unfolded on Risk board game-style tabletop maps and markers under a giant gold chandelier in the House Ways and Means Committee room.

The exercise explored American diplomatic, economic and military options if the United States and China were to reach the brink of war over Taiwan, a self-ruled island that Beijing claims as its own. The exercise played out one night last week and was observed by The Associated Press. It was part of the committee’s in-depth review of U.S. policies toward China as lawmakers, especially in the Republican-led House, focus on tensions with President Xi Jinping’s government.

In the war game, Beijing’s missiles and rockets cascade down on Taiwan and on U.S. forces as far away as Japan and Guam. Initial casualties include hundreds, possibly thousands, of U.S. troops. Taiwan’s and China’s losses are even higher.

Discouragingly for Washington, alarmed and alienated allies in the war game leave Americans to fight almost entirely alone in support of Taiwan.

And forget about a U.S. hotline call to Xi or one of his top generals to calm things down — not happening, at least not under this role-playing scenario.

The war game wasn’t about planning a war, lawmakers said. It was about figuring out how to strengthen U.S. deterrence, to keep a war involving the U.S., China and Taiwan from ever starting.

Ideally, the members of Congress would walk out of the war game with two convictions, the committee chairman, Wisconsin Republican Lawmaker Mike Gallagher, told colleagues at the outset: “One is a sense of urgency.”

The second: “A sense … that there are meaningful things we can do in this Congress through legislative action to improve the prospect of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait,” Gallagher said.

In reality, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, the committee’s top Democrat, told lawmakers, “we cannot have a situation where we are faced with what we are going to be facing tonight.”

The “only way to do that is to deter aggression and to prevent a conflict from arising,” said Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill.

The U.S. doesn’t formally recognize the Taiwan government but is Taipei’s most vital provider of weapons and other security assistance. Xi has directed his military to be ready to reclaim Taiwan in 2027, by force if necessary.

Asked about lawmakers’ war game, Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy, said China wants peaceful reunification with Taiwan but reserves “the option of taking all necessary measures.”

“The U.S. side’s so-called ‘war game’ is meant to support and embolden ‘Taiwan independence’ separatists and further fuel tensions in the Taiwan Strait, which we firmly oppose,” Liu said.

In the war game, lawmakers played the blue team, in the role of National Security Council advisers. Their directive from their (imaginary) president: Deter a Chinese takeover of Taiwan if possible, defeat it if not.

Experts for the Center for a New American Security think tank, whose research includes war-gaming possible conflicts using realistic scenarios and unclassified information, played the red team.

In the exercise, it all kicks off with opposition lawmakers in Taiwan talking about independence.

With the think tank’s defense program director Stacie Pettyjohn narrating, angry Chinese officials respond by heaping unacceptable demands on Taiwan. Meanwhile, China’s military moves invasion-capable forces into position. Steps such as bringing in blood supplies for treating troops suggest this is no ordinary military exercise.

Ultimately, China imposes a de facto blockade on Taiwan, intolerable for an island that produces more than 60% of the world’s semiconductors, as well as other high-tech gear.

While the U.S. military readies for a possible fight, U.S. presidential advisers — House committee members who are surrounding and studying the wooden tables with the map and troop markers spread out — assemble.

They lob questions at a retired general, Mike Holmes, playing the role of the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, before deciding courses of action.

What are the economic consequences if the U.S. goes maximalist on financial punishments, one lawmaker asks.

“Catastrophic” is the response, for both the United States and China. China will hit back at the U.S. economy as well.

“Who’s going to tell the president that he has to say to the American people, ‘Say goodbye to your iPhones?”‘ Rep. Ashley Hinson, R-Iowa, asks.

Do American leaders have any way to communicate with their Chinese counterparts, lawmakers ask. No, China’s leaders have a history of shunning U.S. hotline calls, and that’s a problem, the exercise leaders tell them.

In the war game, U.S. officials are left trying to pass messages to their Chinese counterparts through China-based American business leaders, whose Dell, Apple, HP and other product operations China all subsequently seizes as one of its first moves in the attack.

Are potential military targets in China “near major metropolitan areas that are going to include millions and millions of people?” asks Rep. Mikie Sherrill, D-N.J.

Has Taiwan done all it can to try to calm the situation? All it can and will, lawmakers are told.

“It’s not clear to me we’ve exhausted all our diplomatic options,” Gallagher notes.

Then, on paper, U.S. and Chinese satellites, space weapons, drones, submarines, ground forces, warships, fighter squadrons, cyber warriors, communications experts, bankers, Treasury officials and diplomats all go to war.

At the end, before the lessons-learned part, the war-game operators reveal the toll of the first wave of fighting. Lawmakers study the tabletop map, wincing as they hear of particularly hard setbacks among U.S. successes.

U.S. stockpiles of very long-range missiles? Gone.

Global financial markets? Shaking.U.S. allies? As it turns out, China’s diplomats did their advance work to keep American allies on the sidelines. And anyway, it seems the all-out U.S. economic measures against China’s economy have put allies off. They’re sitting this one out.

In the “hot-wash” debrief at the end, lawmakers point to a few key military weaknesses that the war game highlighted.

“Running out of long-missiles is bad,” said Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-S.D.

But the most glaring shortfalls appeared in diplomacy and in nonmilitary planning.

Becca Wasser, a think tank senior fellow who role-played a convincingly menacing Chinese official, pointed to lawmakers’ recurring frustration in the war game at the lack of direct, immediate leader-to-leader crisis communication. It’s something Beijing and Washington in the real world have never managed to consistently make happen.

“In peacetime, we should have those lines of communication,” Wasser said.

The exercise also underscored the risks of neglecting to put together a package of well-thought-out economic penalties, and of failing to build consensus among allies, lawmakers said.

“As we get closer to 2027, they’re going to be trying to isolate us,” Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Va., said of Xi’s government.

Holmes, in the role of Joint Chiefs chairman, reassured lawmakers, after the first three days of fighting.

“We survived,” he said.
…

your ad here

The United States is setting a record pace for mass killings in 2023, replaying the horror on a loop roughly once a week so far this year.

Eighty-eight people have died in 17 mass killings over 111 days. Each time, the killers wielded firearms. Only 2009 was marked by as many such tragedies in the same period of time.

Children at a Tennessee grade school, gunned down on an ordinary Monday. Farmworkers in Northern California, sprayed with bullets over a workplace grudge. Dancers at a ballroom outside Los Angeles, California, massacred as they celebrated the Lunar New Year.

In just the last week, four partygoers were slain and 32 injured in Dadeville, Alabama, when bullets rained down on a Sweet 16 celebration. And a man just released from prison fatally shot four people, including his parents, in Bowdoin, Maine, before opening fire on motorists traveling a busy interstate highway.

“Nobody should be shocked,” said Fred Guttenberg, whose 14-year-old daughter, Jaime, was one of 17 people killed at a Parkland, Florida, high school in 2018. “I visit my daughter in a cemetery. Outrage doesn’t begin to describe how I feel.”

The National Rifle Association did not respond to a request from The Associated Press for comment.

More than 2,842 killed 

The Parkland victims are among the 2,842 people who have died in mass killings in the U.S. since 2006, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today, in partnership with Northeastern University. It counts killings involving four or more fatalities, not including the perpetrator, the same standard as the FBI, and tracks a number of variables for each.

The bloodshed represents a small fraction of the fatal violence that occurs in the U.S. annually. Yet mass killings are happening with staggering frequency this year: an average of once every 6.53 days, according to an analysis of The AP/USA Today data.

The 2023 numbers stand out even more when they are compared to the tally for full-year totals since data was collected. The U.S. recorded 30 or fewer mass killings in more than half of the years in the database, so to be at 17 less than a third of the way through is remarkable.

Motives range

From coast to coast, the violence is sparked by a range of motives. Murder-suicides and domestic violence; gang retaliation; school shootings and workplace vendettas. All have taken the lives of four or more people at once since January 1.

Yet the violence continues and barriers to change remain. The likelihood of Congress reinstating a ban on semi-automatic rifles appears far off, and the U.S. Supreme Court last year set new standards for reviewing the nation’s gun laws, calling into question firearms restrictions across the country.

The pace of mass shootings so far this year doesn’t necessarily foretell a new annual record. In 2009, the bloodshed slowed, and the year finished with a final count of 32 mass killings and 172 fatalities. Those figures just barely exceed the averages of 31.1 mass killings and 162 victims a year, according to an analysis of data dating back to 2006.

Gruesome records have been set within the last decade. The data shows a high of 45 mass killings in 2019 and 230 people slain in such tragedies in 2017. That year, 60 people died when a gunman opened fire over an outdoor country music festival on the Las Vegas Strip in Nevada. The massacre still accounts for the most fatalities from a mass shooting in modern America.

“Here’s the reality: If somebody is determined to commit mass violence, they’re going to,” said Jaclyn Schildkraut, executive director of the Rockefeller Institute of Government’s Regional Gun Violence Research Consortium. “And it’s our role as society to try and put up obstacles and barriers to make that more difficult.”

But there’s little indication at either the state or federal level — with a handful of exceptions — that many major policy changes are on the horizon.

Some states have tried to impose more gun control within their own borders. Last week, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed a new law mandating criminal background checks to purchase rifles and shotguns, whereas the state previously required them only for people buying pistols. And on Wednesday, a ban on dozens of types of semi-automatic rifles cleared the Washington state Legislature and is headed to the governor’s desk.

Other states are experiencing a new round of pressure. In conservative Tennessee, protesters descended on the state Capitol to demand more gun regulation after six people were killed at the Nashville private elementary school last month.

At the federal level, President Joe Biden last year signed a milestone gun violence bill, toughening background checks for the youngest gun buyers, keeping firearms from more domestic violence offenders, and helping states use red flag laws that enable police to ask courts to take guns from people who show signs they could turn violent.

Despite the blaring headlines, mass killings are statistically rare, perpetrated by just a handful of people each year in a country of nearly 335 million. And there’s no way to predict whether this year’s events will continue at this rate.

Sometimes mass killings happen back-to-back — like in January, when deadly events in California occurred just two days apart — while other months pass without bloodshed.

“We shouldn’t necessarily expect that this — one mass killing every less than seven days — will continue,” said Northeastern University criminologist James Alan Fox, who oversees the database. “Hopefully it won’t.”

Still, experts and advocates decry the proliferation of guns in the U.S. in recent years, including record sales during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.
…

your ad here

The mystery of one of the world’s worst international maritime disasters has been solved off the coast of the Philippines. The wreck of the Montevideo Maru – a Japanese transport ship sunk 80 years ago by an American submarine during World War II – has finally been found. 

The Montevideo Maru was carrying 850 prisoners of war and about 200 civilians who had been captured by the Japanese in Papua New Guinea in 1942. Unaware of who was onboard, the ship was torpedoed by the USS Sturgeon, an American submarine.

Its sinking was initially heralded as a success by Allied forces before the identity of most of those onboard was finally revealed.

The vessel’s location has until now been an enduring mystery.

The wreck was found earlier this week in the South China Sea off the Philippines. The mission was a combined effort of the Australian Defense Department, marine archaeologists from Australia’s Silentworld Foundation, and experts from the Dutch deep-sea survey company Fugro.

The search began earlier this month off the coast of the Philippines. Within two weeks, a positive sighting of the Montevideo Maru was made before the identity of the vessel was officially verified. It was the culmination of years of research and preparation by the search team.

Almost 1,000 Australians died in the disaster, the worst in the nation’s maritime history.

Cathy Parry McLennan’s grandfather Arthur Perry was on the Montevideo Maru when it sank.

She told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. Saturday that she now has closure.

“I burst into tears, and I have been a bit emotional all day, I’m sorry,” she said. “I think it is growing up as a child with my father who really never knew his dad and talked about him a lot and talked about being in New Guinea and what happened, and, so, it has all come to fruition and I think it is a lovely day because at least we know where grandfather is now and I feel closer to him.”

The wreck was discovered on a mission put together by the Silentworld Foundation, which is dedicated to maritime archaeology and history and Fugro with support from Australia’s Department of Defense.

The tragedy affected more than a dozen countries. There were victims from Denmark, New Zealand and the United States as well as Japan.

No items or human remains will be removed from the Montevideo Maru.
…

your ad here

As China strengthens its relations with Central Asian countries, U.S. influence has fallen behind, according to some observers.

U.S. foreign policy in Central Asia has been shaped by strong Russian influence in the region, but China’s growing presence in Central Asia has caused Washington to refocus its strategy through a lens of competition with Beijing. Experts speaking at a recent webinar sponsored by the Caspian Policy Center said the U.S. should not make competing with China the sole focus of its Central Asia strategy.

China and five Central Asian countries recently agreed to sign additional cooperation agreements at a gathering expected to take place in May called the China+Central Asia Summit, Chinese state media reported.

Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative — which aims to link China to the world through land and sea routes, infrastructure and technology — has exacerbated U.S. concerns about economic dependence and unsustainable infrastructure projects around the world, including in countries like Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.

“China has a relatively easy task in the region by virtue of its geography, the attraction of its markets, its status as the number one trade partner in the region, and its offering of connectivity,” said Wilson Center analyst Robert Dale.

Benefits from China

China’s CGTV quoted Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao as saying that China’s trade volume with Central Asia grew by 22% in the first two months of this year. Wang added, “The cross-border e-commerce between China and Central Asia increased by 95 percent year-on-year in 2022, and nearly 300 Central Asian enterprises joined China’s e-commerce platforms.”

According to the American Enterprise Institute’s China Global Investment Tracker, Beijing’s 2005-2022 investments totaled $850 million in Kyrgyzstan, $1 billion in Tajikistan, $1.56 billion in Uzbekistan, $1.79 billion in Turkmenistan and $19.86 billion in Kazakhstan.

While China observers have noticed the country’s strategy on BRI is changing and the pace of new investments has been decelerating, many Central Asians still see China and BRI positively, with benefits to the region that include China’s help in human capital development, education, research and technology transfers.

“Also in telecoms, ICT [information and communications technology] is regarded as a major benefit. Diversification by investing not only in mining and traditional resource extraction but also in agriculture, industry and banking, and free trade zones in support of trade and industrial development and service development. All regard that as positive features of BRI,” said Johannes Linn at the Brookings Institution.

There also have been increased Chinese security activities in the region, specifically bilateral and multilateral exercises, said Brianne Todd, professor at the National Defense University in Washington.

“We know that [Chinese uniformed personnel] are present in Tajikistan, meaning that the Tajik government has invited them,” she said. “They’re doing everything from border security to counterterrorism.”

Chinese presence

BRI investments have dropped dramatically in Central Asia, especially in Kyrgyzstan. There are no new projects, and envisioned rail transit from China to Europe via Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan for now remains on paper.

China is not always effective in Central Asia, Linn said. “They’ve seen Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan in conflict, unrest in Kazakhstan. … China was left outside of these events not really understanding what was going on or being able to contribute meaningfully to resolution.”

Some anti-Chinese sentiment does exist, said Elizabeth Wishnick, senior research scientist at the Center for Naval Analyses.

Clashes between local residents and workers, including in Chinese mining operations, have pushed Beijing to rely on private security companies in Kyrgyzstan, for example.

In Kazakhstan, a recent study showed China as the least preferred partner, noted Wishnick. “That doesn’t mean Kazakhstan is not going to engage with China. It will, but unwillingly, leave opportunities for others,” she said.

Some Central Asians worry about being exploited and overrun through Chinese land use. There is also some concern about China’s treatment of Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples, including Kazaks and Kirgiz in Xinjiang, said Dale.

Other potential downsides to Chinese presence noted by Linn include excessive debt owed, Chinese extraction of natural resources in the region, unfair and nontransparent revenue sharing, little investment in the soft part of infrastructure, concerns about BRI transport infrastructure being directed more toward China than to world markets, data security sovereignty, lack of adequate attention to climate change, agricultural land issue, heavy reliance of Chinese investors on Chinese employees and migration challenges stemming from that problem.

“The lack of transparency in BRI investments and show projects, such as presidential palaces and sports arenas, finance corruption,” said Linn.

US and Central Asia

Amid complex relationships between China and Central Asian countries, analysts at the Caspian Policy Center said that when it comes to influence, U.S. has fallen far behind China.

“Beijing’s emphasis on development, status as a market for energy, interest in agriculture and water projects, all dwarf what the U.S. is actually able to bring to the table even when China underdelivers,” said Dale.

Todd doubts the U.S. will ever be able to compete with China economically and militarily in Central Asia.

“I don’t think that should be the goal, because we know that is not attainable in terms of financial or security interests,” Todd said. “Certainly, we want to have relationships with all the countries in Central Asia, but they should be more broadly based and have everything from economic development to people-to-people exchanges with each of these states.”

For Todd, the key question is how U.S. interests align with those of the region.

Balancing China, Russia

There is also the consideration that Russia is still “very present” in the region despite its preoccupation with the war in Ukraine, observers noted.

Wishnick said Russia remains quite active in the region, “despite being viewed as toxic.” Specifically, Kazakhstan is trying “very hard not to inflame relations with one while engaging with the other.”

Central Asia’s geographic location necessitates a balancing act between China and Russia, experts say.

“All of these countries are facing energy transition, suffering potentially from climate change and are stuck dealing with Russia and China because of the fixed pipelines that connect them,” said Wishnick.

Dale said the U.S. government should not demonize everything China and Russia do in the region but has to understand Central Asians’ needs, “because they are still open to other ideas and connections.”

The best long-term strategy should be to give the region more choices, he said.
…

your ad here

The United States is deploying more troops at its base in Djibouti as it considers whether to evacuate diplomats from Sudan, where a power struggle between two military factions has led to days of violence that has killed more than 330 people.

John Kirby, National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications, spoke Friday with VOA’s White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara about the ongoing fighting in Sudan. He also previewed next week’s White House state visit by President Yoon Suk Yeol of South Korea.

This transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.

VOA WHITE HOUSE BUREAU CHIEF PATSY WIDAKUSWARA: I’d like to start with Sudan. What’s the latest on the evacuation of American diplomats and the deployment of troops to the base in Djibouti?

NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL COORDINATOR FOR STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS JOHN KIRBY: There’s been no decision to evacuate our diplomats. We’re still focused right now on pre-positioning appropriate military capabilities nearby in the region, not in Sudan, just in case there is a decision made to evacuate our embassy.

The bottom line is the situation on the ground in Khartoum is not good. The violence continues, the fighting continues despite both sides calling or urging the other to abide by cease-fires. There’s still a lot of violence inside Khartoum, and so it’s a very tenuous, very dangerous situation. And as we’ve said, if you are an American citizen, and you didn’t take our warning to leave Sudan and particularly Khartoum, you need to take care of your own safety and security, shelter in place, find a place to stay where you can stay safe and not be moving around.

VOA: So there’s no evacuation for American citizens at this point?

KIRBY: There is no expectation that there’s going to be a U.S. government evacuation of American citizens. That remains the case right now.

VOA: Secretary [of State Antony] Blinken has called the leaders of both warring parties to push for a cease-fire. Obviously, that hasn’t happened. The U.S. has very limited leverage because we have pulled U.S. assistance since the coup in Sudan in 2021. Which countries in the region are you reaching out to, to help push for a cease-fire?

KIRBY: We’re talking to the African Union, we’re talking to the Arab League. Clearly, we’re talking bilaterally with other nations around Sudan in the region who obviously have a stake in making sure that peace and security, stability has a chance there in Sudan. And yes, we are reaching out directly. You’ve mentioned Secretary Blinken, but there are other lines of communication reaching out directly with the leaders on both sides there, General [Abdel Fattah] Burhan of the Sudanese Armed Forces and General [Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo] “Hemedti” of the RSF and to urge them to put down their arms, actually put in place a sustainable cease-fire so that humanitarian aid and assistance can get to the people that need it.

VOA: Would the U.S. administration consider any kind of punitive measures to push for a cease-fire?

KIRBY: I don’t have any muscle movements to speak to right now. We are focused right now on communicating to both sides they need to put their arms down, they need to stop the fighting. We need to get the ability for people to get access to food and water and medicine and again, to have a discussion about a transition to civilian authority.

VOA: And how concerned are you that this would turn into a proxy war, where outside groups such as the Wagner Group that’s already in the region might take opportunity from the chaos?

KIRBY: Obviously, we don’t want to see this conflict expand or broaden, and we certainly wouldn’t want to see additional firepower brought to bear; that will just continue the violence and continue to escalate the tensions.

VOA: I want to move on to the South Korean president’s visit next week. One of the leaks showed that there is concern from the South Koreans that President [Joe] Biden might push President Yoon [Suk Yeol] to supply military weapons, munitions particularly to Ukraine. Has this leak complicated the visit at all?

KIRBY: We are very excited about having our second state visit be the Republic of Korea. President Biden and President Yoon have a terrific relationship. We as a nation have a great relationship with the Republic of Korea, our South Korean allies. And it is an alliance. We have actual alliance commitments with South Korea. And there’s an awful lot on the agenda and it won’t just be Ukraine.

But there’s an awful lot of other things on the agenda, everything from high technology to climate change to certainly threats inside the Indo-Pacific region. Obviously, North Korea will be on the agenda. There’s a lot to talk about. And this is a terrific relationship.

VOA: President Yoon said he may be open to providing military support to Ukraine under some circumstances. Is this something that President Biden will push President Yoon for?

KIRBY: This isn’t about pushing South Korea at all. It’s about having a meaningful conversation about items of mutual shared concern and interest and certainly the war in Ukraine is something that South Korea shares that concern with. I’ll let President Yoon speak to what he is or isn’t willing to do.

We have said from the very beginning that what a nation decides to do with respect to supporting Ukraine is up to them to decide. It’s a sovereign decision. The whole idea of supporting Ukraine, this whole fight is about sovereignty. It’s about independence. And how ironic and hypocritical would it be for the United States to dictate terms to a sovereign nation about what they should or shouldn’t do.

VOA: Can we expect any kind of announcements in terms of extended deterrence, increasing U.S. strategic assets, any kind of joint operations of nuclear scenarios in the region?

KIRBY: We routinely talk to the South Koreans about the extended deterrence. I’m not going to get ahead of the president or any specific announcements or anything going forward.

VOA: On semiconductors, now that China cannot access U.S. technology but also Japanese and Netherlands technology for semiconductors, they are reaching out to South Korean companies. Is this something that the president will also discuss?

KIRBY: I have no doubt that they’ll talk about high technology and the need to keep improving, preserving, maintaining resilient supply chains when it comes to semiconductors. But I won’t get ahead of the conversation.

VOA: You mentioned today’s meeting in Ramstein, Germany, which marks one year that the Defense Contact Group has been meeting. Secretary [of Defense Lloyd] Austin said this morning that the focus will be on air defense, ammunition and logistics. What does that say in terms of where we are in the war right now and the strategy going forward?

KIRBY: We have evolved the capabilities that we are providing Ukraine … as the war itself has evolved over time. Here we are past a year. And we know that in the spring when the weather improves, and it’s already starting to improve, that we can expect the Russians to want to go on the offensive in some areas, and we don’t know exactly where or how they’ll do that. But we want to make sure that the Ukrainians are able to better defend themselves against that and if they choose offensive operations of their own, that they’ve got the capabilities to conduct those.

And you heard Secretary Austin talk about air defense, talk about armor capabilities because we believe that one of the things and they say they need to be better at is combined arms warfare, which is maneuver warfare in open terrain. That means, that requires armor, that requires artillery, that requires some air defense. But he also talked about logistics because that’s really the lifeblood of any army in the field, is how do you keep it in the field? How do you sustain it? How do you get him spare parts and food and water and fuel, the kinds of things that they need to maintain operations in a continuous way? So that’s got to be front and center as well.

VOA: Last question, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg this week said that Ukraine’s rightful place is in the Euro-Atlantic family. At this point, do you see Ukraine to be closer toward becoming a NATO member?

KIRBY: Nothing’s changed about our support for the Open Door Policy of NATO. Nothing’s changed about that. We continue to support an open door for NATO. But we’ve also said that any conversation about coming into the alliance has got to be a conversation between the nation in question and the alliance itself.

VOA: But do you see that Ukraine itself has improved on the criteria that it must meet?

KIRBY: Our focus right now with respect to Ukraine is making sure that they can beat back the Russian aggression. That they can be successful on the battlefield so that President [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy, if and when he’s ready to negotiate, he can be successful at the table. That’s our focus. We’ll let the secretary-general speak for the alliance.
…

your ad here