The D Brief: B-2s bomb Houthis; A general’s China alarm; Army’s Ukraine trips; Raytheon fined nearly $1B; And a bit more.

The Pentagon conducted a series of precision airstrikes against Houthi military sites inside Yemen early Thursday, with Air Force B-2 Spirit long-range stealth bombers and U.S. Navy assets in the region teaming up for the attack. 

The strikes targeted five “hardened underground facilities housing missiles, weapons components, and other munitions” allegedly used by the Iran-backed terrorists to attack commercial shipping vessels traveling along Yemen’s coast over the past 11 months, U.S. defense officials at Central Command announced late Wednesday. 

Rewind: Satellite imagery analysis from February showed the Houthis had “undertaken a major expansion of underground military facilities” in addition to the “caves and simple tunnels [the group used] in their earliest days,” researcher Fabian Hinz noted for the International Institute of Strategic Studies in the spring. 

Notable: CENTCOM forces have attacked underground weapons-storage facilities inside Yemen before, including in late March—but U.S. officials did not use B-2s for that operation. 

Trivia: B-2s seem to have last been used in combat nearly eight years ago for strikes against ISIS fighters in Libya. 

SecDef Austin (emphasis added): “This was a unique demonstration of the United States' ability to target facilities that our adversaries seek to keep out of reach, no matter how deeply buried underground, hardened, or fortified,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement that several observers interpreted as a warning to Iran. “The employment of U.S. Air Force B-2 Spirit long-range stealth bombers demonstrate U.S. global strike capabilities to take action against these targets when necessary, anytime, anywhere,” Austin said. 

Think-tank reax: “This strike is laudable, belated, and insufficient,” said Bradley Bowman of the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “The Biden administration deserves credit for using B-2 bombers to target Houthi underground weapon stockpiles, but one wonders what took so long.” 

The Houthi attacks against non-military targets represent “the most serious assault on freedom of navigation and maritime commerce in decades,” Bowman told Defense One. “Let’s see whether this is a one-off or the start of a new and more effective strategy toward the Houthis and more importantly their terror patron in Tehran,” he added. 

Welcome to this Thursday edition of The D Brief, brought to you by Ben Watson with Bradley Peniston and Ethan Brown. Share your newsletter tips, reading recommendations, or feedback here. And if you’re not already subscribed, you can do that here. On this day in 1973, OPEC—led by Saudi Arabia—announced an oil embargo on the U.S. and other nations that supported Israel during the Yom Kippur War, triggering a global energy crisis. “The price of oil per barrel first doubled, then quadrupled, imposing skyrocketing costs on consumers and structural challenges to the stability of whole national economies,” as the State Department recalls. U.S. responses included creating the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, imposing a national 55-mph speed limit on highways(!), and the introduction of fuel economy standards.

The Pentagon announced another $425 million in military aid for Ukraine on Wednesday, including air defense and artillery munitions; air-to-ground weapons; armored vehicles; more anti-tank weapons, and more. 

Panning out: The U.S. has pledged more than $59 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since Russia launched its full-scale invasion more than two and a half years ago.  

Developing: After months of staying quiet about the matter, U.S. Army units stationed in Europe are indeed learning from Ukraine’s experience fighting Russia, officials confirmed Wednesday in Washington. 

A “small element” of soldiers rotates in and out of the war-torn country to collect lessons, said Gen. Darryl Williams, commander of U.S. Army Europe and Africa, speaking at a media roundtable at the Association of the United States Army’s annual Washington meeting. Those soldiers fall under Lt. Gen. Curtis Buzzard, who in August was appointed head of the allied effort that coordinates aid to Ukraine, Defense One’s Sam Skove reports. 

For the record: The team that rotates through Ukraine is limited to working inside the U.S. embassy and does not provide advice to the Ukrainian government, a U.S. Army Europe spokesperson said.

What’s more, the U.S. has also adapted its own training facilities at Grafenwöhr, Germany, to better mimic the tactical environment for the Ukrainian units who come there for training, Williams said. “It looks like the conditions in Ukraine,” he said. Read on, here. 

Also from AUSA: The top U.S. Army commander in the Pacific region is sounding alarms about China’s “dangerous trajectory” and the rising threat of a war in Asia, Defense One’s Patrick Tucker reported Wednesday. 

“There's a limited regional war going on in Europe. There's a limited regional war going on in the Middle East. We can ill afford another limited regional war in Asia,” said Gen. Charles Flynn, the outgoing commander of U.S. Army Pacific. “Why? Because it will be a global problem for all of us,” he said. 

Flynn also argued that the Army would be critical in a fight with China. It’s not the obvious position in a region known less for its land masses than its oceans and vast distances. But he said the Army has undergone a profound transformation to make it not only relevant but essential.

“I often remind people that you're not going to invade Taiwan with the Navy and Air Force,” Flynn said. “You need to generate an invasion force to invade Taiwan. Well, that invasion force exists in the [Chinese] eastern theater command and it is three army groups, and it's north of 55,000 Chinese soldiers in those combat brigades.” 

According to Flynn, China’s “strength is in the air and in the maritime domains,” as well as space and cyberspace, Tucker reports. However, that Chinese arsenal was “not designed to find, fix, and finish land-based forces that are distributed, dispersed, mobile, reloadable network,” said Flynn. Amid those dynamics, the U.S. Army has built new capabilities to attack China in new ways, even across long distances, Tucker writes. Continue reading, here.

Raytheon to pay nearly $1 billion for defrauding DOD, allegedly bribing Qatari official. The company took in more than $111 million more than it was owed under “two separate schemes” in connection with the Patriot missile systems and a radar system, and other defense services, according to a DOJ statement released on Wednesday. RTX also bribed a high-level Qatari military official to win defense contracts, and then concealed those payments by falsifying documents, according to an SEC filing.

Raytheon officials said the company is “taking responsibility for the misconduct” which it said occurred “largely prior to 2020.”

Rewind: In August, Raytheon was fined $200 million for the unauthorized export of defense technology to China, Russia, Iran, and elsewhere. Defense One’s Audrey Decker has more, here.

Related reading

• “Bell presses on with FLRAA as Army cools on large programs,” another one from Decker;
• And don’t miss this oped from a trio of former DOD financiers, “How the Pentagon’s financial audit will help win wars,” by Elaine McCusker, Mark Easton and Greg Little.

And lastly: Former U.S. special operators are helping with hurricane relief. “This started as a small chat group and has since grown to a network of good-Samaritan organizations chipping in to get relief and help where it’s needed most,” Bruce Dixon, a retired Air Force command chief combat controller and a member of the Combat Control Foundation, told Defense One contributor Ethan Brown. 

Dixon, who lives in the Florida Panhandle, is one of several coordinators helping to direct supplies and volunteers to hard-hit areas. He said dozens of teams self-organized in Helene-devastated places like Asheville, N.C., and prepositioned in Central Florida before Milton. They started by clearing debris but have expanded their efforts, including using small drones to find supply routes through washed-out areas. And in North Carolina, former air controllers helped establish a landing zone for volunteer civilian helicopter crews to deliver supplies and materials, Dixon said.