Enforcement capacity is what separates a stated constraint from a real one. The framework can name red lines and bound jurisdictions, but a line only holds when some actor or coalition possesses both the authority and the practical leverage to defend it. Enforcement, on this reading, runs on dependencies rather than belief: the ecology constrains an actor by controlling something the actor needs and cannot cheaply route around. Capacity that exists today can also decay — see leverage half-life — so it is tracked as a trend, not assumed to be permanent.
Enforcement capacity
The ecology's practical ability to impose or hold a constraint against an actor with incentives to cross it — legitimate authority, technical verification, information, financial and infrastructural leverage, coalition durability, and the ability to withstand retaliation, combined. A red line with no enforcement capacity behind it is a warning label, not a limit.