ALEXANDRIA, Virginia—In this edition of Indo-Pacific: Behind the Headlines we speak with Mr. Tevita Motulalo, a veteran journalist, security analyst and strategic communications consultant from the Kingdom of Tonga. Communications with Tonga have been largely cut off since a major volcanic eruption on 15 January broke the country’s underwater fiber optic cable and triggered a tsunami that was felt as far away as Japan and California. Mr. Motulalo, who is in Tonga, answered questions by text during a brief window of stable communications. Q: Can you describe what happened? A: It started a few weeks earlier. The volcano had been spewing out ash and smoke for weeks, but because the usual wind direction is east-south-easterly, it carried the effluents northeast towards Fiji. When there were signs of the volcano reigniting and showing signs of erupting. The National Meteorological Office did the best they could. But there’s relatively little public or …