INDEPENDENT POLICY & RESEARCHConceptual framework Edition 0.8.0
Policy principles & sources

The principles behind
the framework.

Safe Nations develops its own MAR framework around sovereign authority, practical cooperation, civil liberties, and accountable institutions.

What informs the design

  • Sovereign authority: participants retain control of their own decisions, systems, and participation.
  • Practical cooperation: work together on a defined civilian need, with clear responsibilities and an achievable exit.
  • Civil liberties: limit information access, protect private communications, and preserve meaningful ways to challenge decisions.
  • Accountable institutions: make responsibilities, costs, oversight, and evidence visible.

These principles guide the proposed commitments and event-cooperation examples. Whether a particular design provides the expected benefit remains a question for evaluation.

Selected public sources

Some of these principles also appear in selected, dated public statements by Tulsi Gabbard. They inform aspects of our thinking; Safe Nations develops the MAR commitments, cooperation examples, and evaluation approach independently.

Statement dated 14 March 2016; printed 21 March 2016

Restraint in foreign intervention

In this 2016 statement, Gabbard opposed the resolution and argued against interventionist regime-change wars. It records a position expressed in that debate.

Congressional Record: statement opposing H. Con. Res. 121
2025 hearing record; file identified 9 April 2025

Privacy, encryption, and protected oversight

The committee’s questions reproduce confirmation statements about the risks of encryption backdoors and the importance of protected oversight channels. The attribution appears within the questions in Lukas’s questionnaire.

Senate Intelligence Committee: additional pre-hearing questions for Aaron Lukas, questions 104–105
8 April 2025

Transparency, accountability, and public resources

The release described stated priorities of transparency, accountability, organizational efficiency, and spending review. It records stated aims rather than independently evaluating their achievement.

ODNI archived news release on the Director’s Initiatives Group

How the references are used

The references document stated positions in their original settings. They do not establish a complete or current position on every policy question, demonstrate that a stated aim was achieved, or provide evidence that MAR works.

No endorsement or affiliation is implied. The framework should be assessed through its own commitments, safeguards, and evidence.

Public references reviewed 5 November 2026.