A deteriorating system is not necessarily an accelerating system.
Deterioration describes direction. Acceleration describes how quickly that deterioration is increasing.
A system may remain above its integrity threshold while its trajectory already indicates that it will cross the boundary before an intervention can propagate through the system.
At that point, the intervention may remain formally available but operationally irrelevant.
This distinction matters because command systems are often evaluated from present state alone. A system can appear viable while the remaining intervention window is collapsing faster than decision-makers can act.