The stealth bombers demonstrated that the U.S. would protect South Korea against North Korea. (Creative Commons)

The U.S. military conducted a practice bombing run over  South Korea on Thursday. Two B-2 Spirit bombers were sent from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri on Wednesday night on a nonstop, roundtrip flight to South Korea.

Previously, bombers had been sent on bombing exercises before, but they were dispatched from an island base in Guam.

This time marks the first instance where planes were dispatched directly from the U.S., a feat done to reassure Pacific allies, South Korea and Japan of the United States' capability to defend them from North Korea. 

Over the past few months, tensions have risen highly with the communist country. In recent months, North Korea launched a long-range rocket, tested a nuclear bomb and threatened to attack U.S. bases in the Pacific as well as on the mainland.

"We will be prepared, we have to be prepared, to deal with any eventuality," said Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel at a press conference. "We must make clear that these provocations by the North are taken by us very seriously and we'll respond to that. I think their very provocative actions and belligerent tone has ratcheted up the danger."

North Korean leader, Kim Jong-Un has already responded to the U.S. bomb run by ordering rockets to be placed on stand by for firing at the United States' military bases in South Korea and the Pacific.

READ: NORTH KOREA ORDERS ROCKETS ON STANDBY TO HIT U.S. TARGETS

U.S. military officials, however, are not concerned with North Korea's reaction. Instead, they wish to dissuade South Korea and Japan from creating a nuclear arsenal of their own by assuring them of the U.S. missiles' expediency and accuracy:

“The reaction to the B-2 that we’re most concerned about is not necessarily the reaction it might elicit in North Korea, but rather among our Japanese and Korean allies,” Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said during a news conference. “Those exercises are mostly to assure our allies that they can count on us to be prepared and to help them deter conflict.”

Read the full story at The New York Times.

Read more of Neon Tommy's coverage of North Korea here.

Reach Executive Producer Francesca Martens here.