Is there such a notion as "relative independence" where some need exists but the environment has overabundance or overcapacity s.t. any number of producers may drop out without risk, and/or an over-all balance is maintained as to ensure the number does not drop to zero?

This independent life-form may ultimately cannibalize resources from its environment in a crisis, because it is misaligned.

It needs preserve momentum, maintain some trajectory, be sufficiently misaligned or out of sync, and it would break free.

But that would just be a runaway process. That's not enough for independence. But that's where the other aspects —mentioned in previous post— come in.

A form of independence would arise from preserved and/or maintained momentum and trajectory, purpose and goals, latency and slowness to respond, misalignment and deprioritized civilian goals and civilian-centric values and principles, exagerated and/or (badly) anticipated events and responses, preservation and (over)prioritization of its own (nurturing) resources, etc.

It needs to get sufficiently misaligned and out of sync to "break free".