Hours before the New Year's ball dropped in Times Square, US Strategic Command published - then swiftly deleted - a seemingly insensitive tweet making light of the US's violently interventionist foreign policy just weeks after President Trump ordered one of the biggest troop drawdowns in recent memory.

In a play on the annual ball-dropping ritual, StratCom tweeted that "if ever needed, we are #ready to drop something much, much bigger" than the New Year's ball.

A video of B-2 bombers dropping two 30,000-pound conventional weapons during a test run accompanied the video, according to the Associated Press.

After deleting the tweet, StratCom tweeted an apology: "Our previous NYE tweet was in poor taste & does not reflect our values. We apologize. We are dedicated to the security of America & allies."

Our previous NYE tweet was in poor taste & does not reflect our values. We apologize. We are dedicated to the security of America & allies.

— US Strategic Command (@US_Stratcom) December 31, 2018

But that didn't prevent a flood of tweets blasting StratCom for its insensitive stab at humor, with some joking that it was a "very late entry" for worst tweet of 2018. Others accused StratCom of treating "raining death and destruction" as some kind of joke.

US Strategic Command (You know those People who can drop Nukes to kill all humanity) tweeted the Tweet below earlier this evening.