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arXiv · 2610.33750

When Protection Hurts: A Cytokine Storm Theory of Supply Chain Overreaction

Gurkirat Wadhwa
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Abstract

Supply chain resilience research has traditionally viewed defensive actions such as safety stock, backup suppliers, expedited transportation, and emergency sourcing as beneficial. However, disruptions such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2021 semiconductor shortage, and the Suez Canal blockage highlight how synchronized hoarding, duplicate ordering, and capacity reservation can amplify congestion and operational costs, sometimes worsening the original disruption. Motivated by this observation, we develop a decision-theoretic framework in which Protective Response Intensity (PRI) is an endogenous decision variable. We introduce Response-Induced Loss (RIL) to capture costs generated by defensive actions and characterize a unique optimal response that balances disruption mitigation against self-induced losses. We derive a closed-form critical response threshold beyond which RIL exceeds the original disruption intensity, a phenomenon termed a *Supply Chain Cytokine Storm*. We further propose the Cytokine Storm Index (CSI), measuring response-induced loss relative to the original disruption, and discuss its potential calibration using operational data. Extending the framework to interconnected supply networks, we derive a spectral stability condition distinguishing bounded decentralized responses from network-wide propagation. Numerical experiments show that optimal responses remain below the storm threshold, whereas proportional response heuristics can exceed it. Network responses converge or diverge according to the derived stability condition. Overall, our findings highlight that supply chain resilience depends not only on mitigating disruptions but also on keeping defensive responses proportionate to the shocks they are intended to address.

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BibTeXRIS

Gurkirat Wadhwa. 2026-10-24. When Protection Hurts: A Cytokine Storm Theory of Supply Chain Overreaction. https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.33750

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