Topomatics: A Formal Model of Normative Agency beyond Rational Choice

Why do great powers repeatedly suffer defeat in asymmetric conflicts against demonstrably weaker opponents — even when possessing overwhelming military superiority? Standard explanations appeal to information asymmetries, commitment problems, and the underestimation of costs. We argue that these explanations capture symptoms, not the mechanism: they do not explain why kinetic pressure systematically fails to convert into a political result precisely within a specific class of conflicts. The article proposes a mechanism — topomatics. Its central argument: in existential-type conflicts, actors possess structurally incompatible spaces of possible outcomes. The world the offensive actor is obliged to create is a world the defensive actor is ontologically not entitled to permit — not by virtue of preferences, but by virtue of the normative code constituting its identity. Kinetic means alter the material parameters of conflict, but not the opponent's normative code: military victory and political result lie in different ontological spaces. We introduce two measurable indices. The Internal Tension Index S explains why some actors are structurally offensive while others are defensive. The Code Density Index D explains why some defensive actors are resilient to kinetic pressure, whereas others collapse upon the destruction of their institutional carrier. The central result is a graduated theorem of topological unattainability: for actors with low S and high D, no sequence of kinetic actions attains the offensive actor's target world. The theorem is verified on historical cases — Afghanistan, Algeria, Vietnam, Lebanon 2006, Ukraine, Panama.