When Intervention Still Works: Measuring the Window to Prevent Nonlinear Loss

Intervention is only effective within a limited window. Beyond a critical threshold, identical actions fail to restore stability and losses expand nonlinearly. This paper presents controlled simulations demonstrating three structural relationships in degrading systems: (1) the emergence of a recoverability threshold detectable through persistent variance elevation and drift reversal, (2) the collapse of intervention efficacy when actions are taken after threshold crossing, and (3) nonlinear expansion of cumulative loss when intervention is delayed.These results arise under minimal assumptions and replicate across stylized domains. The findings provide a substrate-agnostic framework for understanding when decision-makers can still intervene effectively and when intervention becomes impossible.This paper is a practitioner-oriented companion to A Minimal Physics of Systemic Rupture (Brogdon, 2026a; doi:10.5281/zenodo.15166772), which provides the formal physics derivation underlying these results. The operational deployment architecture — including the Constitutional Architecture (four-layer SCFL stack), Phase 0 pre-declared validation, and outcome-based pricing — is developed in MaaS: Constitutional Coherence Infrastructure for Reinsurance Risk Measurement (Brogdon, 2026b; doi:10.5281/zenodo.19560401).