States position themselves not by their power but by the role the system assigns them. This model measures one thing: the pressure that builds where power does not fit the role. Every containment line, crisis threshold and loss of confidence is derived from that single gap.
The horizontal axis is the actor’s real capacity, the vertical axis the role the system gives it. The diagonal is the line of balance. An actor below the line is given less role than it merits and pushes; one above it has shouldered a role it cannot carry and collapses. Distance from the line = pressure.
Each shock shifts actors’ capacity or role values. The model’s claim: when a single actor’s role changes, the tension erupts not in that actor but in the proxies attached to it.
This list was not written by hand. Only support and rivalry links are defined in the graph; when the triangle rule — A supports B · A rivals C · B rivals C — fires, the containment line emerges on its own. If the proxy’s Δ is positive the line is fragile: the carrier has begun to outgrow the role it carries.
The starting values are my assumption, not a measurement. Change them and see where the model breaks.
So the thesis is not a black box, the whole computation is exposed. The coefficients are open to debate — the real claim is not in the coefficients but in the choice of variables.