President Donald Trump has upped the ante with his social media war against Tehran by threatening Iran that the U.S. military will “quickly & fully strike back, & perhaps in a disproportionate manner,” if the country attacks Americans.

Trump also noted his Sunday tweet served as a “notification” to Congress and that “such legal notice is not required.”

Trump’s assertion on Twitter Sunday that he can use social media to inform Congress of future military actions against Iran is likely to cause further tensions between lawmakers and the White House in coming days, including potential legal actions.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee fired back a tweet telling Trump to read the 1973 War Powers Act — which was intended to serve as a check on the president’s power to commit forces to an armed conflict.

“This Media Post will serve as a reminder that war powers reside in the Congress under the United States Constitution. And that you should read the War Powers Act. And that you’re not a dictator,” the House Foreign Affairs Committee tweeted Sunday.

Since Trump ordered an airstrike to kill Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the head of an elite arm of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, on Iraqi soil last week, Democratic lawmakers have complained publicly that the move may violate the executive branch’s authorities for the use of military force.

They also lamented the lack of advance notification by the White House regarding the attack, traditionally given to key congressional leaders such as the Speaker of the House and heads of the congressional armed services committees.

Republican defenders of Trump largely ignored the slight, noting that the president has broad powers regarding military actions in defense of national security.

But Democrats have promised investigations into whether proper protocols were followed. All lawmakers are expected to receive a classified briefing on the Soleimani killing sometime next week.

Under the War Powers Resolution in 1973, the president is required to notify Congress within 48 hours of any military action and prohibits the president from continuing that action for more than 60 days without an authorization for use of force from Congress.

It specifies that lawmakers must be informed “in writing, setting forth … the constitutional and legislative authority under which such introduction took place, and the estimated scope and duration of the hostilities or involvement.”

The law also requires the president to “provide such other information as the Congress may request in the fulfillment of its constitutional responsibilities with respect to committing the nation to war and to the use of United States Armed Forces abroad.”

Different presidents have interpreted those requirements in different ways, especially since Congress approved a pair of broad military force authorizations in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attack

While Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., on Saturday Tweeted out that Trump, “as Commander in Chief has the authority and obligation to protect American forces in harm’s way, one legal expert challenged the legality of Trump’s announcing policy fiat by social media.

Oona Hathaway, director of Yale Law School’s Center for Global Legal Challenges, said the president’s message “threatens to break several laws,” including the notification issues and the promise of a “disproportionate” response to any attack.

All members of Congress are expected to return to Capitol Hill after their extended holiday break on Monday and Tuesday.

As lawmakers and the White House trade barbs over legal issues related to war, Iran and the U.S. appear to be entering an escalatory conflict spiral that could pull the two countries into a broader war and complicate efforts to ameliorate tensions.

On Saturday Trump tweeted that the U.S. military would target 52 Iranian sites, including cultural sites, if Iran retaliated for the death of its revered commander.

In an interview with CNN, Hossein Dehghan, a military adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said that Iran’s response to America’s Jan. 2 decapitation strike against Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani will be military “against military sites.”

“The United States just spent Two Trillion Dollars on Military Equipment. We are the biggest and by far the BEST in the World! If Iran attacks an American Base, or any American, we will be sending some of that brand new beautiful equipment their way…and without hesitation!,” Trump tweeted Sunday.

The Iraqi parliament, upset over the death of Soleimani, voted in a non-binding referendum Sunday to end the agreement that allowed U.S. troops to assist Iraqi forces in their fight against ISIS.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo dismissed the Iraqi Parliament’s vote Sunday that called for U.S. troops to leave their country.

“We are confident that the Iraqi people want the United States to continue to be there to fight the counterterror campaign. And we’ll continue to do all the things we need to do to keep America safe,” Pompeo said on “Fox News Sunday.

The U.S.-led coalition combating ISIS in Iraq and Syria announced Sunday that U.S. troops were pausing anti-ISIS operations and suspending the training of Iraqi troops as threats to coalition troops housed at Iraqi bases continued unabated.

“As a result we are now fully committed to protecting the Iraqi bases that host Coalition troops. This has limited our capacity to conduct training with partners and to support their operations against Daesh and we have therefore paused these activities, subject to continuous review,” the coalition said in a news release.

There have been more than a dozen rocket attacks against Iraqi bases housing coalition troops in Iraq over the last two months. U.S. officials have fingered an Iran-backed militia as responsible for the attacks.

A Dec. 29 series of airstrikes against the Iran supported militia precipitated demonstrations at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, condemnation from the Iraqi government and the subsequent U.S. drone strike that killed Soleimani.

The U.S. and Iran appear to be entering a heated proxy war.

The Marine Corps Trademark Licensing Program office told Hunter that it his campaign was using the official Marine Corps emblem and the phrase “No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy” in “at least one fundraising mailer” to constituents.

“We thereby request your campaign immediately remove the Emblem and the Phrase from its mailers, and, without limitation, from all campaign materials including websites and other instances where the Emblem or the phrases are being used,” the letter reads.

The letter from the Marine Corps trademark office was obtained and first reported by NBC News.

A spokesperson for Hunter’s office told NBC News that it was complying with the Marine Corps’ request and taking “all appropriate measures” to address the issue.

The campaign mailer, according to NBC News, targets Democrat Ammar Campa-Najjar, who is running against Hunter in 2020, and two other Democratic congresswoman Reps. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan by calling them “radical Democrats” who “want you to forget their anti-Semitism or family-terrorist ties!”

The phrase “No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy” was coined by former Secretary of Defense James Mattis when he commanded the 1st Marine Division during the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

That phrase is now a registered trademark of the Marine Corps.

The Corps’ trademark office said that Hunter’s use of the official Marine emblem and the trademarked phrase is “likely to convey the impression that the Marine Corps favors your candidacy over another, or ‘endorses’ your views on a particular issue, and is a use of which we cannot grant permission.”

Hunter is a Marine Corps veteran and is facing federal corruption charges. Hunter and his wife, Margaret, are accused of using more than $250,000 of campaign funds for personal expenses.

Hunter’s wife pleaded guilty in June to one corruption count.

A judge refused to dismiss corruption charges against Rep. Duncan Hunter in July.

The Corps’ trademark office told Hunter he could state he was a Marine veteran, provide information about his service “based on fact,” or use a Marine veteran logo, which is used by Marines to “indicate their pride in service.”

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

While much of the new gear and experimental fighting concepts are rapidly coming to fruition for what the top Marine has dubbed the “Force 2025” initiative, the Corps is struggling to place Marines in high-end positions to man the force.

According to data obtained by Marine Corps Times, serious manpower gaps appear to be impacting fields like cyber, intelligence, drone operators, ground combat leadership and F-35B pilots — occupations Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. Robert B. Neller often has highlighted as key to building the future fighting force.

High-tech stealth F-35B pilots are only manned at 33 percent, according to 2019 data. Some cyber fields are as low as 17 percent. Drone officers are manned at only 53 percent. Counterintelligence operators are at 67 ­percent, and some signals intelligence fields are manned at 69 percent.

The Corps is also in a race to plus up its low altitude air defense, or LAAD, Marines as it faces increasing air threats. In 2005, the Marine Corps eliminated 4th LAAD Battalion, and in 2007 it eliminated 1st Stinger Battery. Now the Corps is seeking an increase of 214 LAAD counter-drone Marines through fiscal year 2021 and 2022, according to documents obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request.

Other fields appear grossly overmanned: Ground ­intelligence officers and signals intelligence officers are manned at more than 140 percent. And enlisted drone operators are hitting 138 percent manning.

The data obtained by Marine Corps Times via a Freedom of Information Act request is current as of February.

The manpower crunch and overpaced demand for ­high-end fields may create new opportunities for Marines in the form of retention bonuses and a slew of new occupations for Marines to progress into, as the Corps ratchets up efforts to meet the demands of a world amid great power competition.

But the Corps’ push to build the future force may also ­result in shrinking it to reinvest in what incoming ­Commandant Gen. David Berger wrote in prepared remarks to senators during his April 30 confirmation hearing as “constrained resources.” It’s an issue Berger noted as one of his “most significant challenges” as he modernizes the Marine Corps.

The Corps says these manning numbers only provided a limited snapshot of a more complex manning ­calculus, which involves juggling school seat requirements, ­building new occupations and getting Marines through career progression courses.

For schools that don’t belong to the Marine Corps, like the 7315 unmanned aircraft system or UAS officer field, seat requirements have to be registered at times two years in advance, according to Brian ­Gahagan, deputy branch head for Manpower Management Integration Branch.

Gahagan says the surface numbers are “not an accurate depiction” and that some numbers will look “skewed.” It is a multiyear build, he said.

“As new modernizing or divesting [occupational fields] mature through the process many will reflect numerically low staffing levels that, to someone outside the manpower profession, paint an ­unrealistic perspective of some primary MOSs,” Manpower and Reserve Affairs told Marine Corps Times in an emailed statement.

“It may take several years to meet the accession and training levels to fully meet the requirements and build of Marine Corps Force 2025,” Manpower and Reserve Affairs said.

Still, the challenges for the Corps to meet the demands of a dynamic world and rapidly rising ­adversaries may come with considerable sacrifices.

“We will need to conduct a deliberate redesign of the force to meet the needs of the future operating environment,” Berger said in remarks to senators.

Neller’s decision to cut the rifle squads to 12 Marines may be a glimpse of manpower changes the Corps will have to make to plus-up billets in high demand fields and to cut costs to the force.

In many cases, fields that look poorly manned actually have an adequate number of people in the occupation, but those Marines simply need to attend various career progression schools within their tracks to officially obtain some leadership billets.

Still, those Marines have yet to attend ­specific ­follow-on training for leadership positions the Corps has deemed as necessary for obtaining the occupational field, despite already sitting in the billet.

Some of those fields are simply feeder MOSs, where Marines need to attend various schoolhouses to ­obtain the occupation.

As is the case with the 0202 field or Marine ­air-ground task force intelligence officers, which is only manned at 57 percent, according to data obtained by Marine Corps Times.

Capt. Will Dunst, an unrestricted officer ­promotion planner with Manpower and Reserve Affairs, says the “assignable inventory is healthy.”

The 0202 is a feeder occupation within the 02XX field that includes other intel occupations. Dunst says the 02XX occupational field is actually manned at 87 percent, but some Marines need to attend an underutilized school known as the MAGTF [Marine air-ground task force] Intelligence Officer Course, or MIOC.

It is an issue that the Corps is addressing and has slated for action, Dunst said.

High barrier for entry

A lot of the Corps’ manning issues are solved by simply pushing Marines through their feeder MOSs and getting them to schoolhouses.

But for some fields, high barriers to entry are ­preventing Marines from obtaining the occupation; and in other cases, demand for the field is simply creating pipeline logjams, real manpower concerns that can’t simply be addressed by stamping billet assignments for Marines who have not actually ­obtained the primary field.

The 0211-counterintelligence field has ­historically had manning problems associated with a ­multitude of barriers that hinder Marines entering the field.

The field is a lateral move primary occupation that requires a top secret sensitive compartmented information clearance and a high ASVAB test general technical score of 110, which Maj. Lucas Crider, end strength planner and enlisted plans for Manpower and Reserve Affairs, described as a “historically very high” barrier.

To complicate the matter, Marines wishing to enter the field were often put through overly subjective evaluations, like essay writing and interviews.

Crider says the Corps has since removed some of the more subjective requirements and standardized the screening process.

Data obtained by Marine Corps Times says the field is manned at 67 percent, but Crider says the overall inventory of counterintelligence Marines is at 82 percent and that the field has been trending ­upward for the past couple of years.

Within the aviation community, new job fields like the 7315 unmanned aerial system officer field and the 7518 F-35B occupation are outpacing the demand and available school seats.

For the drone field, the Air Force runs the ­schoolhouse, and the Corps only has a finite number of seats.

According to Dunst, the Corps is working with the Air Force to increase seats. But increasing seats also comes with opportunity costs in manpower from the fleet, as often pilots have to staff cadre schoolhouse ­positions.

For the officer drone field, the Corps is also ­looking at leveraging redesignations for pilots, who for ­whatever reason may not have completed ­pilot ­training. This could allow the Corps to recapitalize on skills the Marine may already have learned.

Dunst called it a “good use of taxpayer money.”

From the enlisted side of the house, the 7314 UAS field is overmanned at 138 percent. But Dunst says that growing requirements will eventually balance it.

The F-35 pilot training is running into similar problems where the demand is simply “outpacing training capacity,” Dunst said.

The Corps is pushing a number of initiatives like pilot bonuses and a program called “2P captain ­continuation” to help shore up the F-35B field.

The captain continuation program, for those Marines selected and recommended by a board, allows captains passed over twice for promotion to be offered a chance to continue.

The newly minted 1700 cyber field, ­according to data obtained by Marine Corps Times, is critically short.

The 1705 cyberspace warfare development officer is manned at only 17 percent, the 1721 cyberspace ­defensive operator is staffed at 63 percent, and the 1799 cyber operations chief field is manned at 55 percent, data show.

While the numbers look bad, the cyber field is barely a half year old and many of the fields are only in their first year of MOS production.

The requirements to get these Marines through the pipeline training have been registered, Dunst said.

For the cyber defensive operator field, the Corps just kicked off the first accession school in the second quarter of fiscal year 2019 and simply hasn’t graduated the Marines from that course, according to Dunst.

In some cases, manpower numbers are crunched because the Corps has created new schools.

In 2019, the Corps created the new 0521 psychological operations field, or psyops, which according to data is only manned at 63 percent. Officials at Manpower and Reserve Affairs say the inventory of psyops Marines is actually at 67 percent.

The field used to be an additional MOS and only recently became a primary field, but after completing a tour in psyop, those Marines would leave the field. That has caused the numbers to appear low.

While bleeding talent, Crider says the field has a “difficult school to get through.”

To make the field healthy, the Corps is trying to ­entice psyops Marines who left the field to come back. And now, once Marines laterally move to the field they can stay in the community, Crider said.

Crider said that the field is on track and should hit its authorized billet number of 49 Marines by the end of this fiscal year. There are currently 33 psyop Marines.

The Corps also has created new signals intelligence fields such as 2611 cryptologic cyberspace analyst, manned at 3 percent, and 2629 signals intelligence electronic warfare tech field, manned at 76 percent.

For the 2611 field, the schoolhouse is new and has yet to graduate anyone. And the 2629 field is a feeder occupation within the 26XX signals intel field, where Marines just need to attend follow on leadership and career progression schools.

While a lot of manning issues for the Force 2025 initiative can be solved by pushing Marines through the career progression schoolhouses, there are some serious concerns for fields like cyber, drone operators and F-35 pilots.

The Corps says it is addressing the issues, registering ­schoolhouse requirements and working with sister ­services to increase class seats, while also offering bonuses and job redesignations to help plus up the fields.

At the end of the day, the future force has several years to hit its goals.

New gear, tech, weapons, vehicles and aircraft are already hitting the fleet. And the Corps has signed off on its new expeditionary advanced base operations concept to confront a rising China in the Pacific.

The manpower to staff the new fields to put all the new toys and fighting concepts is slowly catching up.

“The NDS [national defense strategy] forces us to establish strategic priorities and make difficult choices — which will mean doing less in certain areas so we can do more in others,” Berger wrote to senators.

The software, known as Kilswitch and APASS, was developed by Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division, Digital Precision Strike Suite for use in small tactical handheld Android tablets.

Those tablets and software are in the hands of thousands of Marines and other service members, some who have been using it in real-world operations.

The vulnerable software potentially puts Marines and sailors at substantial risk by hackers and sophisticated near-peer rivals like Russia, who could hack the devices in an effort to glean sensitive battlefield information or location data.

A letter to President Donald Trump from the U.S. Office of Special Counsel following the investigation noted that the complex process by which military software is evaluated had been “totally circumvented.”

“The blatant disregard for procedure endangered the lives of military personnel,” the letter stated.

However, the inspector general’s report stated the cyber vulnerabilities could be mitigated if Marines and sailors used the software as originally stipulated in the services’ issued authorizations to operate, or ATO.

Those ATOs approved the use of Killswitch and APASS only on government authorized devices and tablets.

The IG report noted that a number of Marines downloaded the software, where it was available on internal unit websites, onto personal tablets and devices that may not provide adequate security protections.

“The internal marketing of the software contributed to its widespread use,” the special counsel’s letter reads.

The software and tablets have been popular with Marines.

During an experimental urban exercise in March 2018, held aboard Camp Pendleton, California, Capt. Benjamin Brewster, an infantry company commander said the tablet “gives me the ability to identify the things I think are important on a map. It’s battle tracking we’ve never had before.”

The IG report further state that “cybersecurity was not a concern for the developers because they expected that the software would be used only for its intended purpose, and would not be used widely in operations.”

Following the IG report, the Navy directed the Marine commandant and chief of naval operations to ensure the software was being used appropriately in accordance with the ATOs.

“Despite these corrective actions, significant concerns remain relating to the extensive and apparently unregulated distribution of the software,” the special counsel said in its letter.

In a statement to Marine Corps Times, the Navy says it “has taken appropriate measures to address identified issues to ensure the continued safety and effectiveness of our Sailors and Marines.”

An investigation into the cyber vulnerabilities was launched following comments from a whistleblower who was a program analyst and qualified Joint Terminal Attack Controller working at NAWCWD.

He further accused the Navy weapons center of corruption in a letter to the president.

“Mr. President, I understand you want to ‘Drain the Swamp’ in D.C. However, I respectfully request that you start to ‘Pump Out the Sewer’ that is the DoD Acquisition corruption at Naval Air Warfare Weapons Division, China Lake, CA and NAVAR [naval air] Headquarter at Patuxent River, MD,” the whistleblower’s letter reads.

The whistleblower claimed that the main cause of the release of the vulnerable software was “corruption throughout NAWCWD leadership as well as NAVAIR [naval air] senior officers who used this software as a platform for political and financial (Navy Working Capital Fund) gains,” the letter stated.

The cyber vulnerabilities could prove to be a major threat to the Corps, especially for those who may be using the software on unauthorized devices.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Russia was actively hacking the smartphones of NATO service members to gain operational information.

And in 2016, CBS reported that Russia was able to hack a phone app developed by a Ukrainian artillery officer to improve his units shooting performance. That hacking proved lethal as malware turned the app into a beacon, allowing the hackers to locate the Ukrainian military positions.

The new application will help the Corps’ nearly 600 Force Fitness Instructors, or FFIs, create balanced fitness regimens that could support the force’s goal of reducing injuries and tracking overall fitness of a unit or individual Marine.

A Marine will be able to access the app through his phone and see what he is “going to be doing 30 days from now, next week, or tomorrow,” Col. Stephen Armes, the director of the Force Fitness Division, told Marine Corps Times in an interview.

And Marines will be able to self-report injuries on the app. The FFIs can then take those reports to build an injury database. The data will help the Corps track fitness injury rates.

The new app will also help curtail poorly planned fitness routines that can lead to injuries. A Marine programing the application must build a balanced workout plan that includes a mixture of mobility, strength, endurance, muscular, and flexibility, according to Armes.

The phone app will warn the programmer if a fitness regimen is not properly balanced.

The Corps is still working with the Office of Naval Research, and Marines can expect the app sometime later this year.

“We want to make sure all the bugs are out of the system,” Armes said.

The next phase of the program will be integrating wearable tech like the Fitbit watches that track performance and health stats, according to Armes.

A Marine using the integrated tech can look at the phone app and see “you ran an 18-minute PFT, your heart rate was this, and here are your training zones,” Armes said, describing how the tools could benefit a Marine’s overall fitness.

To promote competition, the Corps considered using data pulled from the app and the wearable tech to build leaderboards to highlight the fastest runners on a particular PFT route, Armes cited as one example.

But the fallout after a heatmap from the popular GPS tracking Strava app indicated the locations and layouts of secret U.S. installations and small outpost across the globe has since forced the Corps to drop that plan.

“We are not going to do that,” Armes said.

In early August, the Defense Department officially banned the use of GPS tracking fitness apps or other geolocation features on devices in operational areas or deployed locations.

The new app will also allow units to share fitness plans.