Preventive work feels optional because its success removes the evidence that it was necessary.

Successful prevention deletes its own justification. Nothing happened, so there is no proof that anything would have, and the effort starts to look like an overreaction. That is a structural problem rather than an argument, and it explains why preventive measures get cut first whenever resources are tight.

Decide the value of prevention in advance and stop reassessing it during the quiet periods. Quiet is the result, not the evidence that it was unnecessary.